Valt = Security + Usability

At Valt we know that usability is essential to security. An impenetrable encryption protocol doesn’t help anybody out if nobody uses it. That’s why we designed Valt Passwords from the ground up to both protect and delight. It starts with your first experience using Valt. Instead of authenticating with a text-based password that’s either hard to remember or easy to guess, we use images. Selecting the right images unlocks your Valt. The images might be your own or they might be from one of our hand-curated image sets. Regardless, the experience is engaging, personal, fun and fast.

It’s also incredibly secure.

See, the images authenticate you on your device––they are an alternative to traditional text-based passwords or pins––but we don’t rely on them to encrypt your information. Your Valt data is encrypted with a key that we call the Valt Secret. This key is generated using a cryptographically secure random number generator and stored in a secure location on your device. Valt never has access to it. We never store your key in the cloud and any backup of the key must also be encrypted. We don’t want to know your secrets, we just want you and only you to know them.

Storing your key securely on your device means we can encrypt your data––your usernames and passwords––and store it securely in the Valt cloud. Because our encryption is identical to what the NSA uses for its most-sensitive data, even if a nefarious hacker stole your information from our servers, they wouldn’t be able to decrypt it in this millennia.

Valt lets you use a unique random password for every account. This means that even when you lose some control—like when someone hacks Marriott or Equifax—you’re not exposed anywhere else because all your passwords are different!

Valt understands how to balance different threat models with different levels of security. Data with the most exposure, like that stored in the cloud, gets encrypted with the highest level of security. Data with less exposure, like that stored only on your phone, requires less.

People don’t need a long master password guarding their Valt. This gives only an illusion of security because your phone is already inherently secure. Because it’s a physical device and because your master key is stored locally in a cryptographically secure way, someone needs to steal it to hack it. After that, the thief still needs to break into your phone, which is very, very hard to do.

Here’s the truth, if someone really wanted your passwords, they wouldn’t hack your phone, they’d use the $5 wrench attack. Your images are there to keep honest people honest. They are like a master lock on a gym locker––a simple and effective tool to keep your belongings safe in a relatively threat-free environment. If you’re having coffee and leave your phone unlocked while heading to the restroom, a friend won’t be able to surreptitiously see your passwords because only you know which images unlock your Valt. The same is true when your kids are playing games on your iPad or when your parents are looking at photos.

Valt is a secure and delightful way to protect your most sensitive information. We keep you safe while also making your day-to-day life easier. Automatically filling in form data on the web and in mobile applications means you never need to remember another password. And because images are memorable, you’ll also never get locked out of your Valt. It’s usable security designed for you.