Whenever we talk about password managers, especially the ones that sync your data to the cloud, there is always a discussion about whether or not your information is safe and what happens if the servers go down. The second is exactly what 1Password users in the US experienced todayas an issue affecting 1Password.com, it prevented mobile, desktop, and browser clients from syncing.
AN status page first noticed the problem at 10:42 am ET and listed it as stabilized, and customers were able to connect again at 2:42 pm ET. During the outage, the status page noted that the issue did not affect any offline data stored on the clients and that other domains such as 1password.ca, 1password.eu, or ent.1password.com were operational.
Before I knew there was a break, I saw it on my own account when I tried to save a password, and it just didn’t work. All of my local clients still had all of my current passwords, so I guess most people didn’t even realize it was down. However, if you don’t store your passwords on a local device or if you lost access during the outage, there could be a real problem.
We are already operational.
Earlier today, 1Password experienced a brief service outage; this was not a security incident and your data remains secure. We have stabilized the system while we investigate further.
Thank you very much for your patience.
— 1 Password (@1 Password) April 27, 2022
In a statement delivered to the edge1Password CTO Pedro Canahuati said:
Earlier today, 1Password experienced a brief service outage due to our planned database upgrade. This was not a security incident and customer data was not affected in any way.
The 1Password.com service was down during this outage, impacting new user signups and syncing new data between devices. Our system is designed to ensure that stored passwords are always secure and accessible locally on your devices.
At this time, we have stabilized the system while we investigate performance regression. Client devices should be syncing all new data and subscriptions are working.
We are taking steps to prevent similar disruptions in the future and will provide updates on our status page and social media channels, as well as on our blog for a day or two.
Anyone using a password manager that stores data in the cloud is at risk of this happening to them, but it doesn’t seem to have been very damaging. On the other hand, cloud storage makes keeping tons of logins accessible from every device you use easier and enables features like travel mode which erases the data stored on your device if you are in a situation where it may be seized or searched. Still, given the fact that the new 1Password 8 client will only sync to the cloud and doesn’t offer the option to stick exclusively to local storage, it’s something to keep in mind. For customers who prefer local storage, 1Password has said that they can continue to use 1Password 7.