Keychain

luccallens

Hi,

Is there a way to use Touch ID without having the master password saved in iOS keychain?
I'm using 1passwords just for the reason that I don't want to use Apple's keychain.
I mentioned it before, if I'm forced t use apple keychain, then I don't need 1password anymore.

littlebobbytables

There isn't no. They've done away with the keychain being optional, I believe because it was a source of confusion to some over why they were being requested to enter their master password when they believed it should only be asking for their fingerprint (that's the nature of iOS though).

I don't know if it makes a difference or not but it's not stored in your keychain like it is in say OS X. What has been said here somewhere is it's stored in a way that only 1Password can access it, it isn't synced if you use the iCloud keychain or if you do iCloud backups and it's purged if reboot your phone due to it's temporary nature.

luccallens

Thanks for replying. Well, guess that leaves me to explore Apple's keychain a bit more. Who knows I might start to like it. Using a password manager (keychain) to be able to use another one with more flexiblilty (1password) seems like overdoing it a little. Why would I still use 1password if keychain keeps it already? Temporarily or not: it's in the keychain at one point or another. Transparency is pretty important to me: if I know where my passwords are and how they are secured (or not secured), I feel more comfortable. 1Password gives that to me but now that keychain is involved to improve functionality, I might just opt for a stronger MacBook password and an iPhone passphrase instead, then start syncing the keychain with iCloud. Well, let's see how that works out.

Megan

Hi @luccallens‌,

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts here. As @littlebobbytables‌ says, the Master Password is only stored in the iOS keychain in a temporary manner, and the only reason we do this is because it allows us to properly honour users' lock settings. You can read a few more details about it in our Chief Eliminator of Obstacles' latest blog post:

Touching on Security and Convenience

It is also important to note that security is a process, not a destination. We'll continue to revisit these settings and refine them based on user feedback (and emerging security concerns.)

I hope you decide to stick with 1Password just a little bit longer, and if you do have any further questions about the handling of the Master Password in the iOS keychain after reading Jeff's blog post, please let me know. I'll get our security guru to pop in here and give you the details that you need. :)

jasmas

Megan, I would appreciate a little more detail on your implementation and on how how precisely "iOS Keychain provides a way to store your Master Password in a secure place that only 1Password can access" and also how "it is also aggressively removed from the keychain whenever Touch ID authorization fails or if Touch ID or the device Passcode are disabled."

Perhaps this is as simple as pointing me to the proper documentation from Apple. If I get more information, I could change my opinion, but as far as I'm concerned this recent update has ruined your implementation of TouchID for me. Apple's Keychain security has historically depended a great deal on trusted code running on the device instead of strong cryptography.

I would never be comfortable with my password being written to flash media in any way, even encrypted. I am not comfortable with the password being stored in anything but volatile RAM. Is there a reason I should be? I understand that Apple's implementation of multitasking and automatic purging of backgrounded applications from active RAM is what makes 1Password's implementation of TouchID unreliable without making use of the keychain, but was willing to put up with this behavior to keep my password out of Apple's keychain. 90% of the time it worked fine for me because I was just using TouchID as a quick means of authentication for 5 or 10 minutes at a time when multitasking because I prefer to have 1Password auto lock on exit.

Please bring back the advanced setting to disable storing the password in keychain when touchID is enabled. Include a doomsday warning when enabling it, if you must. I completely understand you not wanting the application to appear buggy, inconsistent or unreliable in any way. But having the convenience of touchID for a few months only for an upgrade to add the caveat that I need to sacrifice security in order to enable it is painful.

littlebobbytables

@jasmas‌ I don't think the keychain usage has fundamentally changed since it was first introduced so I believe this post by jpgoldberg should still be relevant. There is also this more recent post as well regarding changes in iOS 8.

While not Apple documentation, they will hopefully be enlightening and at least suggest things to research.

Megan

Hi @jasmas,

Please have a read through the posts that @littlebobbytables‌ linked to and let us know if you have any further questions. Since I'm not a security expert, we'll likely have to call on our security guru, the Chief Defender Against the Dark Arts himself to answer if you have more technical questions. ;)