Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud
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Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud
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Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud
#2Of course, they don't ask for a specific password.
"Encrypt synced passwords with your Google credentials" is impossible in times of app specific passwords, right?
Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud
#3Of course, they don't ask for a specific password. "Encrypt synced passwords with your Google credentials" is impossible in times of app specific passwords, right?
How Chrome for Android handles this, which supports encrypted sync, is that after logging in it will prompt you for your real password so that it can decrypt the sync data.
Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud
#4You can turn it off if you like:
Settings > Privacy > Backup my data, backup application data, Wi-fi passwords, and other settings to Google servers.
Every few months someone rediscovers that Google also syncs Wifi credentials between devices (perhaps when logging into a new device and finding it tethers itself nicely to the network on its own).
It's a matter of convenience, Wifi passwords are only applicable at a certain range, and other restrictions could be applied even then (like hardware whitelisting etc) it's not your bank credentials.
Here's a reddit discussion (from 2 years ago!) http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/g6ctt/just_upgraded...
Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud
#5..otherwise it wouldn't work.
You can disable backups when you setup your phone.
Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud
#6Frustrating that it's really hard to make my android phone show me the saved password it's using for a wifi.
Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud
#7[deleted]
Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud
#8You can turn it off if you like: Settings > Privacy > Backup my data, backup application data, Wi-fi passwords, and other settings to Google servers. Every few months someone rediscovers that Google also syncs Wifi credentials between devices (perhaps when logging into a new device and finding it tethers itself nicely to the network on its own). It's a matter of convenience, Wifi passwords are only applicable at a ce…
> like hardware address whitelisting
I wouldn't recommend that in any circumstance, it's completely false security really.
MAC filtering is incredibly easy to bypass, all Malory has to do is wait for another device to connect and clone their hardware's address.
Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud
#9With the street view wifi scandal, this on going encryption problem and the revelations about prism this looks very bad.
Re: Android saves wifi passwords in plaintext to the cloud
#10You can turn it off if you like: Settings > Privacy > Backup my data, backup application data, Wi-fi passwords, and other settings to Google servers. Every few months someone rediscovers that Google also syncs Wifi credentials between devices (perhaps when logging into a new device and finding it tethers itself nicely to the network on its own). It's a matter of convenience, Wifi passwords are only applicable at a ce…
Convenience isn't an excuse to not encrypt security data, it does not matter if it is a limited to a few areas where it could be exploited. If Google (any companies, including Apple) can not be trusted to protect such information, they should not be offering it in the first place.
If it can be exploited, it should be protected as much as it can be.
We all saw what happened with Google's StreetView cars capturing the local Wi-Fi traffic. The same thing could be used by somebody hacking into Google's servers, downloading the Wi-Fi passwords and any possible maps data if possible and workaround getting into people's Wi-Fi networks. If it is not likely but it is not impossible.