Proton, the company behind Proton Mail, has announced the launch of a new password manager: Proton pass. While the service will eventually become free for everyone, it’s currently only available as a beta for Proton’s Lifetime and Visionary users.
As is the case with Proton’s other products, Proton Pass uses end-to-end encryption (E2EE) which is supposed to keep your personal information away from prying eyes, including third parties and Proton itself. Not only can you store your usernames, passwords, and notes, but you can also add randomly generated email aliases that you can use as a substitute for your real address.
Proton’s new password manager applies E2EE not only to your passwords, but also to the usernames, web addresses, and all other fields related to your credentials. In a blog post Proton explains the service’s security model, noting that “all cryptographic operations, including key generation and data encryption,” take place locally on your device, which Protons says it can’t decrypt, even if asked by a third party.
“Properly protecting your passwords requires a high level of competence with encryption and security, which few organizations have,” writes Proton founder Andy Yen in a blog post. “We’ve always been concerned about the risk of a major password manager breach, which unfortunately became a reality with the recent LastPass hack.”
The company’s new password manager is coming a little over a year after Proton acquired SimpleLogin, a tool that allows users to send anonymous emails. Yen says this acquisition has given the company “more ability to develop a new password manager without impacting efforts for other Proton services” and should help mitigate the risks associated with using an insecure password manager. password manager with Proton’s product range.
Proton plans to open source its password manager once it is released to the public and is offering to do so up to $10,000 in rewards for security researchers who can find vulnerabilities in Proton Pass and its other products. The password manager is currently available on desktop, Android, iOS, and as a browser extension for Brave and Google Chrome, with an extension coming soon for Firefox. It’s not yet clear whether Proton Pass will support passkeys, and the company didn’t immediately comment on that The edgerequest for more information.
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