It's true that in the Agile Keychain Format item title and URL are not encrypted, but it is a mistake to think that only passwords are encrypted. That's not how it works.

The details of exactly what is and what isn't encrypted in the Agile Keychain Format is documented in the first link in the article. (And has been since the day the Agile Keychain Format was introduced). The rationale for that design choice was spelled out later in http://help.agilebits.com/1Password3/cloud_storage_security....

among other places.

Attachments are encrypted. Other than some meta data (modify times and the like) the only things that aren't encrypted are the Location (URL) and the Title. Earlier versions of the AgileKeychain format also left password strength unencrypted, but that was changed (and announced) years ago.

And as we've promised, we are moving to a new format that encrypts everything (except some things such as modify time). The 1Password Cloud Keychain format is documented here:

http://learn.agilebits.com/1Password4/Security/keychain-desi...

When we first promised this, we weren't sure how we would achieve the three goals of having:

(1) Everything encrypted. (2) Only decrypting a single item at a time. (3) Efficient listing and matching of items to websites.

To understand how we've managed to achieve all three you need to take a look at the details of the Cloud Keychain Format.

Currently, the Cloud Keychain Format is only used for syncing data between 1Password 4 on iOS devices. But it will eventually replace the Agile Keychain Format everywhere.

Cheers,

-j

I ask because when you drag an attachment to a entry, it states: "The file has been added as a secure attachment."

Leading me to believe it's encrypted (along with everything else in the entry...).

   ~/Library/Application Support/1Password/1Password.agilekeychain/data/default/

   ~/Library/Application Support/1Password/1Password.agilekeychain/a/default/files

I'm seeing the 'Username' and 'Note' fields for example, for Login items as encrypted.

I found a summary[1] of why/what gets encrypted under "Individual Entry Contents".

[1]: http://help.agilebits.com/1Password3/agile_keychain_design.h...

They have a new keychain design [2] in which most metadata (including item titles) is encrypted. This is currently used for iCloud syncing, and they plan to roll it out for other sync methods and perhaps local storage as well [1]. I am guessing this will happen in the new OS X version.

[1] http://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/12237/metadata-i...

[2] http://learn.agilebits.com/1Password4/Security/keychain-desi...

http://www.informationweek.com/security/encryption/security-...

"Belenko said that he himself had been using 1Password Pro, which may be the most-installed password manager for Apple iOS. But he ceased using it after testing the application's cryptography. "When we recovered my master password in five seconds? That was a moment," he said."

I recommend that people actually read Elcomsoft's outstanding report on the security of password managers on mobile devices.

At Blackhat, Andre demonstrated a Chosen Ciphertext Attack (CCA) against PKCS CBC padding scheme. And 1Password (along with pretty much everyone else who used common recommended libraries) did use that padding.

But there is a whole lot more that would need to be put in place for a CCA to work. In particularly you need to be able to ask the app to repeatedly decrypt bogus ciphertext and see how it responds. You need to be able to interact with the thing that is performing decryptions for you.

CCAs are most applicable when there is some encrypted server, and this does form the basis for the BEAST attacks against SSL servers.

Although the CCA didn't pose an immediate threat to 1Password users, we did change the padding scheme in an update to 1Password within weeks of getting to see the report. (It would have been nice to see it beforehand.)

Changing the padding scheme fixes the particular CCA that was used, but the proper way to prevent all CCAs is to use authenticated encryption. Take a look at

http://blog.agilebits.com/2013/01/18/authenticated-encryptio...

which discusses that.

There were two other things that they dinged us for.

(1) Our low-security items are really very low security.

We already knew that, but because of how people used 1Password, it was possible for people to have important data that was only protected with the low security 4 digit PIN. In 1Password 4, we no longer have security levels. Everything is high security. (We have introduced a 4 digit application unlock, but that is different.)

(2) Our failure to use PBKDF2 for the Master Password for the native (SQLite) data on the phone.

This was particularly embarrassing because we were early leaders in the use PBKDF2 in general. The history of how we made this mistake is more tedious than its worth, but in general it was part of our transition from using OpenSSL crypto libraries to CommonCrypo in the iOS SDK. The SDK for iOS 3 didn't include PBDKF2 and we were trying to maintain compatibility with older devices. So when we ripped out OpenSSL, we were left without PBKDF2.

Anyway, this was also fixed within a few weeks of the release of the Elcomsoft report.

I really recommend that people read their original report. We don't come out of it smelling like roses, but I think it shows us to be clearly among the best. Elcomsoft does outstanding work, but they also have a habit of stating their results in ways that can be mistaken as suggesting their results are more dramatic than they really are.

Cheers,

-j

It goes without saying that you'd want to keep all the fields of a secret encrypted but it's also important to note that the plaintext fields can offer clues about the nature of the encrypted parts.

Calling a secret "Bank account" (plaintext) and only encrypting the PIN code tells an intruder that what is encrypted is a 4 digit code ranging from 0000-9999. If instead you encrypt the entire record the nature of the contents is entirely unknown.

I have respect for the fine folks at AgileBits but I don't agree with their approach to security and took the more thorough approach I mention above in KEYBOX.

But I can comment on the superb quality of the user-facing aspects - it's a pleasure to use, has great iPhone and Dropbox support, and I really like the way they communicate as a company.

1) entering your 1Password master password in untrusted software

and

2) running untrusted software which could potentially keylog your 1Password master password?

Agilebits likes to talk about how 1Password protects against keylogging (http://help.agilebits.com/1Password3/security.html and note the author here http://mackeyloggerprotection.com/ ) but what's stopping attackers/malware from keylogging your master password and exfiltrating your 1Password database and master password?

There are some counter measures in 1Password to try to thwart keyloggers. The details vary from OS. As far as we know, our defenses work against existing keyloggers, but we also know that this is an arms race that we can only lose.

If your machine is compromised, then you can no longer trust anything on it. So while we believe that our current counter measures work against current threats, we can't state with much confidence that they will continue to do so. We've been fortunate in that keyloggers tend to be simple and go for the low hanging fruit.

Cheers,

-j

Bonus points for something which makes having a central repo of shared passwords possible, Keepass is terrible for this.

I'd like to see a helluva lot of proof that you're a legit company before trusting you with this kind of information.

I say this not to discourage you, but just to explain how a business owner will think about your premise. Or at least me, don't know if this is representative of your actual audience or not.

In any case let me know when it's up, I'd love to take a look!

Also: https://grepular.com/LastPass_Vulnerability_Exposes_Account_...

Will people never learn? Do you realize what happens when your password manager itself gets compromised?

Using a password manager is trading security for conveniency. This is simply not acceptable.

I fully expect all the people using insecure security practice and all the people selling snake oil to downvote this.

The problem, however, is that you can't argue with facts. And the fact is that trading security for conveniency is a very stupid thing to do.

Also, note that if my password manager is compromised, it means that the attacker has some level of access to my machine, since that is where my passwords are stored. In that case it is reasonably likely the attacker can also install a keylogger. This will reveal my often-used passwords even if I do not use a password manager.

For example, if you're password is "puppy" and you're signing-up for HN, your password would be:

pHuApCpKy

And, if you wanted to make it stronger, salt it with some special characters.

p~Hu!Ap@Cp#Ky$

... which is just the shift-characters on a number row in order.

This way, you only have to remember one password, and it is service specific, and pretty strong. No password manager needed.

Of course, I don't do this. I use a 1Password and KeepassX.

To be honest, firefox has an encrypted database of site-passwords. What's wrong with that?

http://supergenpass.com/

https://www.pwdhash.com/

> Note that I don't have to worry about losing the cred files themselves, because I don't store them on me [on the SD card]; I only keep the keyfile [on the SD card].

You could keep a copy of the TrueCrypt volume there, but besides making the SD card more worthwhile as a theft target [they would only need it + your master password, not it + your master password + knowledge of and access to your Dropbox], it introduces versioning/sync difficulties when you add or change keys. You're almost unilaterally using these keys to speak to remote hosts anyway, so you're going to be online enough to get to your Dropbox whenever you need them.