mattrubin / Authenticator

Two-Factor Authentication Client for iOS
https://mattrubin.me/authenticator
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Encrypted backup lost all keys on iphone upgrade #405

Open fiddlegulch opened 1 year ago

fiddlegulch commented 1 year ago

Greetings,

I recently acquired an iPhone 12 pro max. I restored that iPhone from an encrypted backup from a PC. I did not restore from the Cloud. It was my understanding that my keys in authenticator would carry over if I did the restore this way.

My keys are now gone. I am reading other support threads online that indicate this has happened to many others.

I am going to lose my job over this and am extremely upset this has happened. I am locked out of several important accounts right now.

mattrubin commented 1 year ago

I'm sorry to hear that this happened to you!

This is the first time I've heard a report that restoring from an encrypted backup did not preserve Authenticator tokens. Could you provide any more information about how you were backing up your phone – what type of computer you backed up to, and what version of the operating system (or of iTunes) you're running on that computer?

fiddlegulch commented 1 year ago

Hi Matt,I really appreciate your reaching out. I use a Windows based laptop. Windows 10 and the most recent version of Apple iTunes  software. I have always done encrypted back ups of my iPhone to my computer after having a bunch of stuff compromised in iCloud years ago. I will never use iCloud for anything again because of that.I was frankly shocked that the keys did not carryover from the encrypted back up when I restored everything to a brand new iPhone. It's actually partially my fault because I saw the authenticator app had carried over to my new phone but I didn't actually open it right away to check and see if the keys were there. Because I saw that the app had carried over, I didn't think to check and see if the keys were actually still in it. It would be really cool if I could restore my new phone back to a previous encrypted back up so I could recover those keys, but it's my understanding that isn't possible. I even attempted to restore my old phone that I had cleared back to factory settings from the encrypted backup to see if the keys would show up there  but was not successful. I thought maybe the authenticator app was only recognizing that previous device and not my new one. The app showed up but when opening it the keys were gone.Now I am locked out of Facebook and cannot get back in even after giving them information to verify my identity. They are the worst. Maybe this is the universe's way of telling me that I need to dump Facebook once and for all! Ha ha. I have done a Google search and I am not the only person that has had this happen. That was how I found you. This product is extremely flawed and it's a really good thing I was able to recover some of my logins for work related stuff in a backdoor way. Others may not be so lucky and that is devastating especially if you need the keys for work or business.If I can provide any more information to help troubleshoot this, let me know. I would love to figure out a way to get those lost keys restored.Thanks again for following up. On Feb 11, 2023, at 8:14 PM, Matt Rubin @.***> wrote: I'm sorry to hear that this happened to you! This is the first time I've heard a report that restoring from an encrypted backup did not preserve Authenticator tokens. Could you provide any more information about how you were backing up your phone – what type of computer you backed up to, and what version of the operating system (or of iTunes) you're running on that computer?

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