What happened
A new academic study uncovered 25 distinct password recovery attacks against leading cloud-based password managers, including Bitwarden, LastPass, and Dashlane, exposing design weaknesses that could allow attackers to recover or manipulate stored credentials under certain conditions.
Who is affected
These vulnerabilities impact users and organizations relying on these password managers, collectively serving over 60 million individual users and nearly 125 000 businesses, as well as the broader cloud security ecosystem that depends on zero-knowledge encryption assurances.
Why CISOs should care
Cloud password managers are critical tools in enterprise credential hygiene and security strategies. Weaknesses in recovery mechanisms and encryption designs can undermine zero-knowledge security guarantees, potentially enabling attackers to access or compromise sensitive vault data, eroding trust and increasing risk of credential exposure or unauthorized access.
3 practical actions
- Review and patch immediately: Prioritize applying all vendor patches and mitigations addressing the identified password recovery vulnerabilities.
- Strengthen authentication policies: Enforce strong multi-factor authentication (MFA), especially for account recovery, and tighten access controls around administrative workflows.
- Evaluate reliance and configurations: Reassess your organization’s dependency on cloud password manager features (e.g., key escrow, sharing), and adjust configurations to minimize exposure from legacy or poorly protected flows.