Bitwarden review: our hunt for the best password manager continues

all right everybody take this in the average american adult now spends over six hours a day on the internet yep we're managing more and more of our real world lives online which means we all have way too many passwords to remember so if you're tired of hitting that forgot password button or you're looking for the ultimate password protection you're probably interested in using a reliable password manager like bitwarden look using just one password to gain access to all your login credentials sounds very tempting but before you sign up you need to know if bit warden is secure hey i'm your host mike vaughn welcome back to cybernews.com your source for reliable cutting edge commentary in the world of cyber security and if you haven't already down at the bottom you will find that subscribe button see it there you go give it a tap and if this video is helpful in any way please like it to support us okay today we're gonna review bit warden and find out how it works and whether or not it's worth using now let's dive right in is bitwarden safe i'm happy to say yeah it is bitwarden provides an encrypted vault to store all your passwords they protect this vault with a single long master password so you're probably wondering how the master password is protected well bit warden uses a zero knowledge architecture which means that bitwarden hashes your email and your master password on your device before sending them anywhere so bitwarden servers only receive the hashed versions of your email and password and they hash them again before they're transmitted and stored on their databases they even repeat this process every time you log in keep in mind hash functions are one-way only meaning no one at bitwarden can reverse-engineer them into your actual master password another element to consider is the encryption they use for your password vaults they encrypt your vault with the military-grade aes-256 cipher meaning the national security agency has even approved this cipher to protect their top secret level information the encryption key is derived from your master password and stored on bit warden servers in a heavily hashed form they protect all the information stored in your vaults from logins credit cards secure notes and ids even folder names using end-to-end encryption this way even bitward employees won't be able to comprehend it when you authenticate with bit warden a copy of the encrypted data is downloaded and stored on your device the data is only decrypted when it's in use and it's only stored in ram bitwarden never stores any plaintext data on their servers or your local devices bitwarden also has third-party auditors verifying their security now in november 2018 bit warden passed a thorough third-party security audit and cryptographic analysis by cure53 the assessment covered bit warden applications and their back-end server systems bitwarding carefully considered the findings and officially announced their actions to resolve any identified security vulnerabilities bit warden also completed a security assessment and penetration test by insight risk consulting the audit didn't identify any major security issues but there were some moderate issues and bit warden resolved them in one of their server security updates well done bit warden is located in the us which is not exactly a privacy friendly jurisdiction however even if bit warden handed over the data stored on their servers no one could even decrypt it bit warden also meets gdpr privacy shield and ccpa standards which means they're handling your data in compliance with all these regulations so even if someone hacks your bit warden your data will still be secure thanks to the one-way salted hashing and other cryptographic measures they employ that said hackers can initiate a social engineering attack or install a key logger on your pc through malware no system is completely safe you know that however if you have two-factor authentication enabled hackers who know your password would also need to know your 2fa code to access your account so there you go bit warden source code is available online which means it gets reviewed by lots of developers this scrutiny helps bit warden patch security holes they also have a public bug bounty profile on hacker one bitwarden offers an excellent suite of security features first and foremost they offer an encrypted vault to store your logins cards identity and notes very safely in the vault there's an option to check on your password to see how many times it's been exposed to data breaches they also provide a password generator so you don't need to spend as much time contemplating secure passwords bitward and send feature is a secure way to send information like text or files directly to another person bit warden fully encrypts all the information transmitted and you can choose to further protect the information by configuring the expiration date maximum access count password requirements and more bitwarden's vault health reports will help you identify instances of password reuse assesses your password strength and let you know if your password has been exposed in known data breaches or sold on the dark web these reports will also advise you if you're visiting a website that uses unsafe protocols to transfer data you can also use bitwarden to autofill your logins on the web or other apps it shares your password across devices and will save you a lot of typing if you want to use unique and complex passwords bit warden also helps you keep your account more secure with two-factor authentication enabling 2fa requires anyone who wants to access your account to verify your login with another device such as an authenticator app sms phone call or email now you'll be glad to know this provider does not break the bank either now they do offer a free plan that includes unlimited vault items a secure password generator secure text and file sharing autofill and more if you're interested in features like the vault health reports and priority customer support then you'll want to consider upgrading to bitward and premium where you can reap the benefits of these features this plan only costs 10 bucks per year they also offer their family organization plan which provides premium features for up to six users this plan just cost 40 dollars per year now i found it easy to sign up for bit warden on their website but the hardest part was actually coming up with a memorable but difficult to crack master password now downloading and installing the bit wardens window application takes just a few clicks and the process is complete within just a few minutes appearance wise bit warden's interface is very bland but in my mind functionality comes first and i have to say bit warden is easy and very intuitive to use entering your information into the vault is a breeze and bitwarden automatically separates my logins cards identities and secure notes which i really do appreciate i also found it helpful to create folders to organize all my passwords another cool feature bitwarden will send me an email notification whenever anyone tries to log into my account from a new device very safe while testing the password generator i was surprised to find that not only can it generate secure passwords up to 128 characters but past phrases up to 20 words as well bit warden also makes it super easy to copy newly generated passwords into myvault my only complaint is that bitwarden bury some of their features like their password generator in the view tab so it's easy for us users to overlook it so yeah take note on that one bit warden now if you want to import your passwords from another password manager the import process takes only a few clicks but you can only do it when using bitwarden's webvault if you want all your passwords while you're on the go make sure you download the bit warden app it's available on the apple app store and google play and i tested the ios version and overall it was just as user friendly and feature rich as the version i'm running on my pc the only thing i found unintuitive was that the option to create new vault folders was not on the vault screen it was located in the general settings screen instead don't know why unfortunately the only way to contact bit warden's customer support is via email but if you're paying for a premium plan well you should at least expect to get priority service and if you're willing to do the dirty work yourself bitwarden's website has a help center with plenty of articles you can read through they also have a community forum where users share their workarounds and solutions okay now if you've made it this far you can already understand the benefits of a password manager but i do want to stress real quick that they really can safeguard all your online accounts if your credentials fall into the wrong hands not only can other accounts get taken over but in the worst case scenario your identity could be stolen or your finances and reputation destroyed look it's a grim picture no doubt and unfortunately we uncover a colossal number of leaked data on a regular basis most recently one of the largest compilations of all time consisting of 8.4 billion entries yeah we'll link that article down in the description if you would want to read more about that overall bit warden is a solid password manager it's secure user friendly free and even the premium options are affordable compared to other password managers i also appreciate that the company is transparent regarding its audit findings and its remediation efforts their customer support could certainly use some work to make it more accessible and i'd prefer if they stored their data in a more privacy friendly country but not a deal breaker in my opinion so guys you know what would make my day if you would kindly subscribe and smash that like button yep that's it you're hovering over it come on click it right next to it there you go so are you planning on downloading bit warden and giving it a go let me know in the comments why or why not thanks for watching our video we look forward to seeing you in the next one later guys

Channel: CyberNews

Views: 20,015

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Id: 29rkVCNmC1Y

Length: 10min 25sec (625 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 19 2021