using a password manager without 2FA is insanity, glad they're doing it
this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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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?
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
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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.
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Recovery codes.
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
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.
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.
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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.
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Shit no. I can't access my Email without 2FA. I can't access my 2FA file without Bitwarden What do I do?
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.
use any other 2FA app for your email so you aren't in a 2FA loop.
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My problem with this is my email accounts are locked behind bitwarden. Can't login to email without bitwarden. If both my devices get stolen at the same time I'm fucked. I'm not going to pay for premium to enable a emergency contact.
Downloaded bitwardens authenticatior app. Now firefox on my computer is asking for me to press on a security key which I assume is some sort of biometrics my computer doesn't have.
I love 2FA I just don't see how it is supposed to work if you need bitwarden to open your email to get your 2FA code.
Let's say your backpacking through south america and both your devices get robbed. Your ticket home is in your email. What's the solution here? You can't go to a coffee shop and login to your email because its securely locked behind bitwarden. You can't login to bitwarden because you can't access your 2FA from your email.
What am I missing?
Use something else for 2fa not email. I used to use keepass for 2fa on my laptop and phone, but now I'm using ente auth. It's convenient because I can login ente auth anywhere and get a code but the only thing is you'll need to remember 2 passwords which is worth it imo.
So I need a 2FA application? Just seems a little ridiculous as that is what I use email for. So my bw pass is well over 25 chars and I need to have another app that requires an equally strong pass. Just seems a little overkill! Especially changing passwords every year.
I'd hardly consider it overkill for protecting literally all of your online passwords.
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I remember two passwords. My email and my password manager. Oh, and one of my banks.
Locking the key in the vault, or the backup vault, didn't make sense to me. It also made sense for me to have access to one bank even if I lose both "vaults".
My email pass is over 25 more or less random characters that I change about once a year. That's why I use bitwarden!
You provided a situation where your phone was robbed and you didn't plan for it so you didn't print the relevant information.
So... Prepare ahead? Go to a relevant office with identification to get access to the relevant tickets again?
"What can I do if all the tools at my disposal to get the relevant information are stolen?" You get fucked. Idk what else to tell you.
This is why I turned on 2FA with Aegis soon as I heard this news. I set them up with two passwords I remember well, and have biometrics set on both apps so fingerprint is all I'll need 9/10 times.
I did it years ago when they sent me an email suggesting to do exactly that.
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.
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
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...
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
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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.
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.
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@ForgottenFlux I lost one of my pair of hardware keys last week. Waiting for replacement to arrive - #Bitwarden will be the first thing I register it into
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