Your master password stays with you
- Your master password never leaves your device. We never see it, store it or send it anywhere.
- To sign you in, your device sends a one-way fingerprint (a hash) of a key made from your password. Our server stores only a slow hash of that fingerprint.
- Because we never have your master password, we can't reset it for you. Keep it somewhere safe; the emergency kit page shows how.
How your vault is locked
- Your device turns your master password and email address into a master key, then stretches it with HKDF-SHA256. This happens on your device only.
- Your vault is locked with a random 512-bit key: AES-256 encryption plus an HMAC-SHA256 check that spots tampering. That key is itself locked with your stretched master key.
- Where your apps support it, each item also gets its own key.
Coming soon Argon2id by default. We're making Argon2id (64 MiB of memory, 3 passes, 4 threads) the default for every new account, and asking older accounts to upgrade when they next unlock. It makes guessing your master password far slower for an attacker. Until that ships, you can switch your own account to Argon2id in the vault's security settings.
Sharing without handing us the keys
- Every person has their own RSA-2048 key pair.
- Each team has its own random key. We hand it to each member locked with that member's public key (RSA-OAEP), so only they can open it.
- Shared folders and the items in them are encrypted with the team key.
One-time links
- When you send a one-time link, the key to open it lives in the part of the link after the
#. Browsers never send that part to a server, so we can't open what you sent.
What our server can and can't see
End-to-end encryption protects what's inside your vault. A server still has to know some things to work. Here is the full list.
Our server can't see
- Passwords and usernames
- Website addresses saved in items
- Item names and notes
- Custom fields
- Authenticator (2FA) setup keys
- What's inside attachments
- Folder and shared-folder names
- What's inside one-time links
When the Inbox, backup-code tracking and where-used lists arrive, they'll be encrypted the same way. Coming soon
Our server can see
- Your email address, and your name if you give it
- Which teams you belong to
- How many items you have, and their type (login, note, card…)
- Item sizes, and when items were created and changed
- Which shared folder an item is in
- Your devices and IP addresses
- The event log (for example sign-ins, and for teams, who used which item when)
- Which websites' icons it fetches for you (see below)
When reminders and agent accounts arrive: the date a reminder is due (not what it's for), and which item an agent read and the reason it gave. Coming soon
Website icons
To show each website's icon next to your logins, our own server fetches the icon for you. The websites never see a request from you, but it does mean our server sees which website names it's fetching icons for. It never sees your usernames or passwords for them.
Coming soon A private icon service that only ever sees website names mixed in with many others, so it can't tell which ones are yours.
Verification codes
Vikela shows authenticator codes only. Each code is worked out on your device from a setup key that's encrypted like everything else. We decided not to pass text-message or email codes through our server, so every code in Vikela stays end-to-end encrypted.
How we run the server
- The server's admin page can't be reached from the internet. Auxo's administrators open it only through an encrypted, access-controlled tunnel.
- No default passwords. The admin key is stored only as an Argon2id hash.
- Nobody can create an account without an invite.
- Sign-in attempts are rate-limited, so password guessing is slow.
- Every connection to Vikela is encrypted with TLS (HTTPS), on top of the end-to-end encryption.
- We follow the open-source projects we build on and apply their security fixes promptly.
- Coming soon Weekly automatic checks of every software library we depend on for known security holes.
- Coming soon Automatic lock-outs for addresses that keep guessing.
Independent audit
No independent security audit has been done on Vikela yet. An audit by an outside security firm is planned before public launch. Until then, please judge Vikela on what this page says, not on a badge.
Found a problem?
Please tell us privately first: support@auxodigital.africa with "Vikela security" in the subject. Please give us a chance to fix it before you tell anyone else.