Re: Is Keychain or any other program safe for storing sensitive data on a desktop Mac?

From	Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com>
Newsgroups	comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject	Re: Is Keychain or any other program safe for storing sensitive data on a desktop Mac?
Date	2018-11-10 15:01 +1300
Organization	Aioe.org NNTP Server
Message-ID	<ps5e5n$bft$1@gioia.aioe.org> (permalink)
References	(1 earlier) <ps1abr$1fah$1@gioia.aioe.org> <2018110813514766717-tomevans9890@yahoo.ca> <2018110820550661596-tomevans9890@yahoo.ca> <2018110911034357212-tomevans9890@yahoo.ca> <51W5y0sPNk52-pn2-N6JmUImzvZeB@localhost>

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On 2018-11-09 22:53:35 +0000, John Varela said:
> On Fri, 9 Nov 2018 19:03:43 UTC, Tom Evans <tomevans9890@yahoo.ca>
> wrote:
>> On 2018-11-09 05:23:05 +0000, nospam said:
>>> In article <2018110820550661596-tomevans9890@yahoo.ca>, Tom Evans
>>> <tomevans9890@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>>>>>> I thought maybe the thief was able to hack into my Mac and find my bank 
>>>>>> information there.  (I have my user names and passcodes stored on my 
>>>>>> Mac, but in a text program and not in Keychain.)
>>>>> 
>>>>> that's *not* a good idea.
>>>> 
>>>> Two messages down, Your Name wrote that it's "immensely unlikely" that
>>>> a hacker hack into my bank data on  my Mac, and two messages up, Callum
>>>> wrote "If nobody else has physical access to that desktop Mac [which
>>>> nobody does] it's very safe indeed, especially if you don't sync the
>>>> keychain via iCloud to any other Mac" [which I haven't].
>>>> 
>>>> So who's right, those two guys, or Nospam here, who wrote that it's
>>>> "not a good idea" to store sensitive data in a text file on a Mac?
>>> 
>>> everyone is.
>>> 
>>> it's never a good idea to store sensitive data in an unencrypted file
>>> especially if it has an obvious name, like passwords.txt.
>>> 
>>> that doesn't mean someone hacked you, but if they did, that's going to
>>> be the first file they're going to look at.
>>> 
>>> at a minimum, such a file should be encrypted, but a much better
>>> solution is use password management app which is designed for that
>>> purpose, or use the built in keychain.
>> 
>> Thanks, Nospam.
>> 
>> What passcode management programs do you recommend?
>> 
>> I checked Keychain, but it seems like it would be hard to find the
>> company information I want to look for there.
>> 
>> I want to have a list of companies that I deal with, shown in
>> alphabetical order (such as Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Costco, etcetera),
>> with each company's information in one place under the company's name
>> heading in bold type, but instead  Keychain has one folder for
>> passcodes, and another folder for Secure Notes, so I'd have to have
>> each company's passcodes and notes into separate folders, and then
>> scroll through those two folders to see each company's passcodes and
>> notes.
> 
> 1Password has separate "Categories" for logins, secure notes,
> software registrations, and others, but you don't have to use that.
> There is a Notes item in each login entry, and there you can type in
> anything you want and even import files, such as a copy of the
> registration email from a software vendor.
> 
> Personally, I find it convenient to declutter the login items and
> store the software registrations together, but to each his own.

Another bonus with 1Password (and probably some of the other password 
managers) is that you can easily read / copy the information from the 
menu bar icon, after entering your master password, without having to 
open up the full app.

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