A previous employee used 1Password to deny our company access to the company database. Please help!
Our IT person password protected our database before he quit working for us. Can you please help us retrieve our data?
Janet Slinkard
{telephone number deleted]
1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided
Referrer: ug:mac/, kb:contact-us, kb:change-master-password, kb:forgot-master-password
Comments
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This is a public forum so I have deleted your telephone number. I'm unsure from your post whether your ex-employee has effectively barred access to your company's 1Password database (by changing the master password) or to some other database your company uses (by generating a strong password in 1P and using that password for the company database).
1P is very secure and its data are held only locally (or in the Cloud if iCloud or Dropbox is used to sync that data to another machine). AgileBits does not have access to the 1P data of any user. That means, I'm afraid, that your only options are:
- to retrieve the password from the ex-employee;
- if it's not the 1P master password that has been changed, to open the ex-employee's 1P data vault and obtain the password from there;
- if it's not the 1P database to which access is barred, to see if your database supplier can do anything to assist you;
- if it is the 1P data to which access is barred, to start over with a new vault (but that will obviously lose you access to all passwords and other data currently stored in 1P).
I'm sorry not to be the bearer of better news.
Stephen
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Hi @JanetSlinkard,
Whatever has happened, it doesn't sound a fun day at all (clearly quite the understatement). Now Stephen_C has covered a couple of scenarios as it isn't quite clear to either Stephen or I if we're talking about an external database that has been password protected and that you know the password is in a 1Password vault or if you're talking about a change to a Master Password for your 1Password vault. The two are quite different so to best answer you it would greatly help if we understood in just a little more detail.
I see Stephen has redacted a telephone number. I know some people don't realise this forums are public so if you feel uncomfortable discussing this here please do say.
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I have no problem discussing my dilemma in a public forum, I'm just desperate for a solution. I work at an educational company that provides cloud-based curriculum and management to several private schools as well as individual homeschool families. We are a small team, and recently lost our IT guy. He was a self-taught coder, and he basically authored the entire program.
His leaving was sudden and unforeseen, and he will not respond to our efforts to contact him. We are looking to replace him, but in the meantime we need to maintain the program. The task of sorting out the php and sql files has fallen in my lap.
It's a huge struggle because I'm a graphic artist, not a database administrator or coder. I keep running into 1Password, asking me to enter the master password. I have no reason to believe he changed the master password, since no one else in the company had the password or even knew he was using 1Password. I do believe it may be associated with iCloud and/or Dropbox.
The truth is that the entire company hinges on the program, if I can't get it sorted out, and quickly, the company could go under and I would find myself out of a job. Any direction at this point would be greatly appreciated.
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I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but if:
- the only place which has the password(s) you need is 1Password; and
- you don't know, and can't obtain, the 1Password master password
then, unless fortuitously you can guess the password(s) you need, you won't be able to access that which is protected by the unavailable password(s) (unless the suppliers of the products can assist you in some way).
There's simply no way to access the 1Password database without knowing the master password.
Stephen
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@JanetSlinkard: It doesn't look like this was mentioned already, but if you have backups of the data before the Master Password was changed you may be able to restore and unlock it using that:
Automatic Backups
But unfortunately if you (or anyone else still available) never knew the Master Password, there isn't going to be any way to recover the data, since it's encrypted using that.
Knowing next to nothing about law, I do wonder if the authorities might be of help in a situation like this. It sounds like this data is owned by the company, and if an ex-employee is essentially holding it hostage (by encrypting it and not providing the key), there may be a case to be made that could warrant police involvement. Just a thought.
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