Apple didn’t kill the password

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Summary

I’m in a national park near Barcelona, making my way back to the office. And I’m thinking about Apple’s new password-less system. While it’s a great idea, the security concern is when your phone is backed up to iCloud, because you don’t hold the keys to the backup, Apple does. I’ll still test the app, but I recommend using a separate password manager, so even if your device or iCloud is compromised, your passwords stay safe.

Raw

Well, today I come to you from this national park. Can’t remember the name of it. But anyway, that’s the Mediterranean Sea back there, all the way in the back. And Barcelona is in that direction, like 10 kilometres or something. So I’m actually making my way back to the office.

Woof! is down there somewhere. You’ll see him.

What I want to talk about today is how secure your passwords are. Everyone talks about using, let’s put it this way. Last week, Apple came up with a new system for the new operating system about getting rid of passwords. So you use your biometrics, i.e. your face ID or the touch ID. So instead of having to create passwords.

Now, that’s a fantastic idea and it’s a great innovation in a way. I’m sure there are other companies that have done it in the past. The problem I have with it is the security of it.

Now, as we all know, the Apple ecosystem is pretty secure, way more than Google or anyone else pretty much. So I trust my data in that system. The problem I have with it is that there’s one part of the Apple ecosystem that isn’t 100% secure. I mean, nothing is 100% secure, but isn’t as secure. And that is when you back up your phone to the iCloud.

When it’s on their servers, you don’t hold the keys, in which case it’s not actually secure because they still have access to it. Will they touch it? Will they do anything? I doubt it. But there’s still that idea of, I don’t own the key to my house type thing. So having this password, synced to your phone and your other devices and then having your phone backed up to the cloud, then those passwords effectively are not secure. That’s how I come to think about it.

So will I be using it? Yes, of course I will be because I’ll be testing it out and then trying to find some white papers to see how secure they are. But you’ve got to, well, basically use a separate password manager.

Because if you’re at the border guards and someone wants to see your data, I mean, I always wipe my phone before I go anywhere via plane or anything anyway. But if they have the passwords or the biometrics, i.e. your eye or finger, to your device, then they have access to all your passwords. Whereas if you use a password manager, then even though they have access to your phone and your devices in your data, they will never get access to the passwords because that’s a separate password to get into that password manager. Hopefully that makes sense.

But yeah, Apple is secure, so I wouldn’t have a, I wouldn’t worry about it, but there’s still that little bit of touchiness about not owning the keys to my data when, only when it’s backed up to the iCloud. So that’s just something I wanted to bring out there on the Monday.

If you have any questions, let me know. There’ll be a link below. Let’s have a chat and see if I can help you with your Apple stuff. Anyway, enjoy a day. I’m going to go and walk around a little bit. And I’ll see you in the next video. Ciao. Bye-bye.