Bitwarden users who store their email account credentials within their Bitwarden vaults would have trouble accessing the sent codes if they are unable to log in to their email.
To prevent getting locked out of your vault, be sure you can access the email associated with your Bitwarden account so you can access the emailed codes, or turn on any form of two-step login to not be subject to this process altogether.
I’d say the title would be more precise like “starting February, 2FA will be required for all users” as tth email is also a form of 2FA.
I think it’s good, especially when done on the device level, making it that I don’t have to use the 2FA part every single time I login, it’s a good balance between security and usability
I understand this change by Bitwarden, but I wish they gave us the option to turn this off or at least given us more time before forcing this on us.
There’s a lot of comments talking about how this increases security, which is true. But it also increases the risk of account lockout. This is especially true in two scenarios: traveling and incapacitation.
Traveling - for those of us who travel frequently, we carry all of our belongings with us. This makes us particularly vulnerable to account lockouts. We can’t securely store backup devices or documents in easily accessible locations. We can’t easily rely on trusted friends or family because they are so far away. Also, internet accounts are more likely to lock us out anyway because we are logging in from a different country, which is suspicious behavior.
Incapacitation - god forbid, if there comes a time when we are permanently or temporarily incapacitation, it becomes important for our loved ones to access accounts. When we are in the hospital, it’s important that our loved ones get access to our personal accounts. I personally have advanced directives and have worked with an estate lawyer to make sure that my Bitwarden account becomes available. I also have instructions for immediate trusted family on how to access my vault if I were ever in the hospital. With this short notice, I need to scramble to get all of that updated and provide a way for them to access the account without my 2FA devices.
The above scenarios are based off of my real experience. These are real and likely risks that I have to account for. Security is not just making sure that outside bad actors CANNOT gain access, but it also means that the right people CAN get access at the right time.
What am I going to do? I’m weighing my options.
- I believe the self-hosted version of Bitwarden does not require this. This comes with its own set of risks though.
- Pay for premium, which comes with lockout support - I need to see if this can take care of both use scenarios above.
- Turn on 2FA and memorize the recovery code. While viable, since I will only use the recovery code once, I’m likely to forget it.
- Change the email to a non-2FA email address, only used by Bitwarden, with a strong but easily memorable password. This email must allow access from foreign countries without lockout (gmail is out). I’m actually strongly considering this.
The other option for traveling that might be better is use Keepass with the file stored on your phone, that way no internet is needed and there’s no chance of lockout from your password DB.
My email is the only account that isn’t in my password manager. It is by far the most important account because basically all of my other passwords can be changed if someone has my email. My password manager password and my email password are the only 2 I have to remember, and they are both very strong passwords. Remembering 2 strong passwords isn’t much harder than remembering 1 to me.
Shit no. I can’t access my Email without 2FA. I can’t access my 2FA file without Bitwarden What do I do?
I have another 2FA app (Aegis) with the same keys added for my email and any other critical stuff.
use any other 2FA app for your email so you aren’t in a 2FA loop.
This is one of the reasons my main email is a (unique) password I still memorize, so if my password manager fails catastrophically I can still get in.
Find a new single point of failure?
I like to just use passwords I know with my brain.
Thats fine if it works for you.
My comment on all of this was purely that Bitwarden password was a single point of failure. Now we can shift that single point of failure somewhere else!
I’m not sure what the solution is.
Probably my mail
using a password manager without 2FA is insanity, glad they’re doing it
Insanity is when you lose or can’t access your 2FA device and you’re locked out of your account.
That’s what recovery codes are for.
Sounds like a second password then.
…which you keep in a separate secure location in case you lose your 2FA device.
Why can’t I keep my password in a secure location then?
shit, why can’t i just keep the secondary password instead of relying on notoriously insecure sms, or notoriously privacy invading email?
why am i forced in some instances to rely on third parties?
obviously you do but it can be leaked, phished, or hacked in other ways. a second “factor” such as possession of a token device is a safeguard against that.
you can actually read about all this many places online, it’s nothing new: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-factor_authentication
From the wikipedia link you posted:
Account recovery typically bypasses mobile-phone two-factor authentication
It also lists more advantages than disadvantages.
I can’t believe people are arguing about and downvoting this. Especially for a service that holds all of your passwords, it’s the highest priority thing for you to secure.
Never underestimate the human capacity for short-sighted laziness.
insanity is also relying on a single 2FA device, ffs
- Have multiple factors
- 3-2-1 vault backups
- Setup emergency access if you have a person you trust
- Keep at least one device with BW synced at any moment, so you have offline access
Recovery codes.
Where do you store your 2FA recovery codes?
On Bitwarden!
Well thats a good way to lock yourself out of your account!
Well, not really. Vault is cached on your devices, so if you have it unlocked or available on one of them you can always use it to check your 2FA.
By the way, it was a joke. I also use Aegis as a backup.
On my home PC. Same with the 2fa export of aegis.
“What if you can’t access blah”There’s a limit to interoperability, if you want access to everything everywhere even when you lose access for whatever reason, you will have to concede security.You could save a keepass file with secure notes of both the bitwarden 2fa and recovery codes and save it in drive or whatever, you don’t need passwords nowadays to access the Google account.“But what if I lose access to my phone?”Well you are fucked, what else do you want? I guess you could print the recovery keys and store them in a secured box at home.Edit: I read further down that your comment was meant to incite other to actually think and do stuff. Sorry if I came of rude.
two places:
\1. secure location in your home (physical copy in a safe or a digital copy on an encrypted disk)
\2. in case of a disaster like a home fire where you lose the 2FA device and local backup: in a remote location such as an encrypted file in a cloud service or at a trusted friend/family’s house.
I know the recommendations. Im suggesting that everyone take a look at those practices and be sure to have them implemented.
If you’re not printing out the codes on paper and sticking them in a safe deposit box as a remote backup, you’re absolutely risking it.
ok, sorry for answering what appeared to be a genuine question.
Nah you hit the nail on the head. I 100% agree with you. Sorry if I came off brash.
Sorry, basic question here. I’m running vaultwarden, I host my own vault that bitearden apps access. I don’t think my vault has a mail server, how fucked am I?
You’re good. Self hosted vaults are not affected by that
I also host my own vaultwarden and don’t have a mail server. I was able to put SMTP settings in vaultwarden so it’s able to send the email out.
Is it possible to change emails on the account? I haven’t found how…
You can also register a MFA app and lock recovery codes in your PC.
This has been announced with enough time, you still have time to download another app like aegis or whatever. This is only for new logins however, you will still have access to bitwarden wherever you are already logged on.
This is the first I’m hearing of this, but, honestly, I’m all for it. I have Aegis and will add this mfa step, but needed to change email anyway and this was a great reminder of that.
It is possible here I think : https://vault.bitwarden.com/#/login
Edit: after logging in : settings -> my account (if I recall correctly)
The link to this web page is available on the app : settings -> about -> Bitwarden web vault
And this changes the username to the new email, too?
Yep so you have to “switch user” after that on computer and mobile where your old email is remembered.
Sweet! As long as I don’t lose access, I’m good. I’ve been trying to do that for a while, since I lost access to my old email (my own stupid fault), but couldn’t figure out how to do it on the app… because you can’t haha I’ll have to try that through the webapp! Thanks!
Edit: it worked! Thanks so much!
