Taking passwords abroad safely?

TUVOK

Hi,
I'm going abroad in about a month and I need to take passwords with me for banks, investment platforms and various others.
Can any one recommend the best way to be able to do this please?

I have read about password managers, I do a lot of Pc work/use and get by ok but I would not say that I am 'tech savvie' , basically need some way short of writing them down in a book which I have done in the past, but realize in this day and age open to book being stolen.

If any one can direct me to a tool/site which I could use, I would be grateful.

Emmia

Lastpass is one option, but you need to ensure the password to get into lastpass is suitably complex, secure, but also crucially memorable.

400ixl

Don't go near LastPass. Used to be a good option, but now to get real benefit you need to pay for the useful features. It is proprietary code as well now so has not been suitably scrutinised for some time.

Look at the likes of Bitwarden which is open source and gives you more than enough features free.

https://bitwarden.com/download/

Create yourself a personal account (use a good password for your account). Download the extension version which is for the web browser you use on your desktop. Once installed you log into the app extension to unlock your vault.

Now the easiest way to get the login into the vault is to go to the website that you want to store and log in as usual. The extension will detect the login and ask if you want to store it in the vault. Do this and then whenever you go to that site you should see a number appear in the Bitwarden extension in the browser toolbar which you can click on the use to stored login details.

You can then also install the app version for you phone / tablet that you will be taking abroad and once logged into that it will sync your passwords across allowing you to take them with you.

Brie

passwords aside.....

I had a problem with online banking shortly before going overseas.  When trying to get it resolved I asked what would happen if I was overseas and tried to log in.  Well they'd need me to have my card in my pin sentry (ok) and then would likely ring my mobile as I would be in an unknown location and it would need to be checked on.  (ok)  Accept that being overseas I wouldn't have the same mobile number.  I explained that my mobile company would charge me a minimum of £5 a day to have access to anything and then silly money on top of that to make or receive any calls or texts.  So when I go overseas I get a temporary local sim with a different number - any obviously I wouldn't know that number until I got it when I was overseas.  This is an insurmountable problem with the banks as they will want to confirm on my regular number that I'm changing to the new one.  At the price of about £10.  So not going to happen.  I've yet to find a way to message any bank/credit card to get them to acknowledge a temporary change like this in a way that doesn't cost a large amount.   

PHK

It's really a good idea to use a password manager at home as well as abroad. 

I also recommend Bitwarden.

(As for roaming, I always find it a little odd that people pay hundreds or thousands for a holiday but won't spend £30 for a months roaming pass, but will spend more than that in time and effort and another SIM)

Emmia

PHK said:

It's really a good idea to use a password manager at home as well as abroad. 

I also recommend Bitwarden.

(As for roaming, I always find it a little odd that people pay hundreds or thousands for a holiday but won't spend £30 for a months roaming pass, but will spend more than that in time and effort and another SIM)

I have to agree on the roaming bit, I'm currently on a SIM only deal that allows the same plan in the EU as it does in the UK. I took it out several years ago. It's not the headline cheapest, but I'm sticking with it for that reason alone, and not dropping to a "cheaper" contract.

If I didn't have that deal (and prior to getting the deal) I'd pay for roaming, keeping data switched off as much as possible to avoid excessive charges, minimising issues like the one the OP has... Avoiding the hassle alone involved with getting a SIM is worth more (to me) than the costs of roaming, plus I'd rather be holidaying than faffing around finding a new SIM, setting it up etc., etc.,

What does the day of holiday cost if you divide the travel + hotel by days of holiday? More than the roaming charge I'd expect.

robatwork

Brie said:

passwords aside.....

I had a problem with online banking shortly before going overseas.  When trying to get it resolved I asked what would happen if I was overseas and tried to log in.  Well they'd need me to have my card in my pin sentry (ok) and then would likely ring my mobile as I would be in an unknown location and it would need to be checked on.  (ok)  Accept that being overseas I wouldn't have the same mobile number.  I explained that my mobile company would charge me a minimum of £5 a day to have access to anything and then silly money on top of that to make or receive any calls or texts.  So when I go overseas I get a temporary local sim with a different number - any obviously I wouldn't know that number until I got it when I was overseas.  This is an insurmountable problem with the banks as they will want to confirm on my regular number that I'm changing to the new one.  At the price of about £10.  So not going to happen.  I've yet to find a way to message any bank/credit card to get them to acknowledge a temporary change like this in a way that doesn't cost a large amount.   

I'll hold my hands up to say I always thought all networks are free to receive SMS and calls while abroad, without roaming or additional charges. Maybe I've been with O2 too long. Which network are you on, and are you going to the EU or elsewhere, as some quick research gives quite conflicting results on this.

PHK

It's free to receive SMS but not calls.

400ixl

Brie said:

passwords aside.....

I had a problem with online banking shortly before going overseas.  When trying to get it resolved I asked what would happen if I was overseas and tried to log in.  Well they'd need me to have my card in my pin sentry (ok) and then would likely ring my mobile as I would be in an unknown location and it would need to be checked on.  (ok)  

Which antiquated bank is this? Logging in to your online or app based banking abroad does not kick in any additional security with any of my banks.

Now, if I set up a new payee whilst aborad I would expect the usual security checks to kick in that I would get at home.

TMSG

If you're happy to have your passwords stored in the cloud by a third party then Bitwarden is probably the best option. They end-to-end encrypt the passwords so even they can't see anything... if there are no bugs or other security holes.

I for one store some files in the cloud but only if I do the en/decryption myself locally before up/downloading (see https://rclone.org/ for the software I am using, both for pCloud and my S3 buckets).

I do not store passwords anywhere external though, only local. For this I used to use KeePass2 for Windows; nowadays I am using KeePassXC for Linux (there are others; KeePassXC is also available for Windows). For Android I have KeePass2Android but again there are others. All these are free software (FOSS) and all understand the same KeePass 2 file format so they're 100% interoperable.

https://keepass.info/
https://keepassxc.org/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=keepass2android.keepass2android or https://github.com/PhilippC/keepass2android

Micron

I've been using KeePass2 for many years on my PC and more recently Keepass2Android Password Safe on an Android phone.

It's free, open source, no need to open an account, works locally without internet access and works well for me.

You can also run a portable version of KeePass2 from a USB stick, it's said to be secure as it doesn't store any sensitive information on to the running system.