Question about best-practice way to selectively migrate passwords

Hi Talia521:

If your concern is that the system this export / import is happening on may be compromised, I think we're having an entirely different discussion. There are bigger concerns at that point than what happens with the exported file. For example, if the system is compromised, then keylogging of passwords as they are entered into web forms, regardless of what/who is doing that entering, would be a real concern. Additionally, you mention possibly encrypting that file as it is being generated, and again, if you can't trust the system, there's truly no way to verify that a malicious process isn't copying the unencrypted data before it is encrypted. Personally I wouldn't continue to use a system where I have a believe that compromise or malware is a real concern until that concern is addressed.

That said, it certainly wouldn't hurt at all to change any secrets that passed through a plain text export once they've been encrypted. It may be overkill, but it certainly is a step you could consider, depending on your threat model.

Jack