Our secret to you is this one: everything can be hacked! Do not believe those who pretend that your passwords are safe because they are encrypted. There are so many ways to reverse-encrypt, and also even lists of predefined reversed encrypted passwords circulating on the dark web. No, to really protect secrets, we have to be smarter!
Understanding risk
The need for secrecy
Would you like to keep some secrets really secret?
This is not just about keeping passwords safe. There is so much more to keep safe from hackers. For example, if you have a Crypto account, you may have noticed that when you opened it, the supplier offered you to keep 12 memorable words of their choice, so that you can get back access to your account if you happened to lose the private key to it (which will frankly likely happen frequently if you project yourself over the next 20+ years).
The problem!
Let's focus for a moment on the case for protecting your cryto account. Here are your options:
- You could write your secret on a paper (or a sheet of metal, what is the difference?) and keep it in a safe... How convenient is this? Where is the key of the safe? Is the safe really safe?
- You could write the secret in a file and keep it in a USB stick... where do you put the USB stick? If in a safe, then same problem as above. In your bedroom, top drawer??? hummm...
- You could write the secret in a file and keep it safe online... The main question is: how do you know it is safe online? Facebook got hacked, LinkedIn got hacked... your safe provider will get hacked!
- You could encode the secret in a file and upload it online... Better, but then how do you decode it? You just moved the problem of keeping the secret of the 12 passcodes to now keeping the secret of the private key for encrypting...
The need for sharing
Have you found how to keet your secret? Great, because now it gets worse!
If this secret is not for being ever shared with anybody else no matter what, all good. But maybe at some point you want someone to know about it, or to inherit it, or to have access to it if something happens to you. How will you do this?
- You could give away your secret now, but it would not be really secret anymore, would it?
- You could assign your secret to a trustee, but then comes the question of trust in those people and their processes and systems.
There must be a better way...
As you can see, keeping a secret is no small business, but then sharing securely the secret, or even better, the access to the secret, is an even greater task with greater risks of leaks.
Authenly is keeping all your secrets really secret by combining online security (cloud), mobile security (your device) and offline security (hidden at the location of your choice). At the same time, Authenly allows you to assign the right to decode a secret to a person of choice that you trust. This person will not have access to your secret yet, but is only allowed to decode your secret when she has sight over it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Have questions? We’ve got answers. If you can’t find what you are looking for, feel free to get in touch.