cybersecurityWhen you save passwords in Edge, the browser decrypts every credential at startup and keeps them resident in process memory. This happens even if you never visit a site that uses those credentials.
At the same time, Edge requires you to re‑authenticate before showing those same passwords in the Password Manager UI — yet the browser process already has them all in plaintext.
Edge is the only Chromium‑based browser I’ve tested that behaves this way. By contrast, Chrome uses a design that makes it far harder for attackers to extract saved passwords by simply reading process memory.
It decrypts credentials only when needed, instead of keeping all passwords in memory at all times. App‑Bound Encryption (ABE) adds another layer by binding decryption to an authenticated Chrome process, preventing other processes from reusing Chrome’s encryption keys.
Because of these controls, plaintext passwords appear only briefly during autofill or when the user views them, making broad memory scraping far less effective. The risk of keeping the passwords in cleartext in memory becomes evident in shared environments.
If an attacker gains administrative access on a terminal server, they can access the memory of all logged‑on user processes. In the video the attacker has compromised a user account with administrative rights and is able to view stored credentials for two other logged on
(or even disconnected) users with Edge running. I reported this to Microsoft, and the official response was that the behavior is "by design". They have been informed that I would be sharing this as a responsible disclosure so users and organizations can make informed decisions
about how they manage credentials. Last wednesday (April 29th) I disclosed this on BigBiteOfTech by Norway
Simple, educational proof of concept, to show that the passwords are stored in cleartext in memory.
Good! I felt there was this major push in the past year for people saying "Fuck Google! I use Edge which is like Google Chrome but better!"
And now I can clown on them. (And also people who recommend Brave. Fuck those guys too)
so windows is unsecure by design
But why
Yikes 😬. This prompted me to export and wipe my passwords from edge, which I've only kept on my work pc for the rare sites that have issues with non-chromium browsers. They show this warning in the export dialogue:
Your passwords will be visible to anyone who can see the exported file
The audacity lol
EDIT: They've apparently removed the "Passwords" option from the "Delete browsing data" menu. So now I'm removing my 100s of saved credentials one-by-one manually. Again, I can't stress this enough, the sheer fucking audacity of this shell of a shell of a tech company.
EDIT 2: I just keep finding stuff. So obviously Microsoft has never let you uninstall edge. That apparently didn't stop them from hosting this page:
Are you sure you want to uninstall Microsoft Edge?
That's obviously a rhetorical question, they offer no such option, the page is essentially just an ad. But it was the second result I saw when searching "uninstall ms edge" in duckduckgo. The fact that that page even exists says a lot actually, that enough people are searching for ways to uninstall it that they thought that it was worth it.
On that note, I can't slap Linux mint on this particular computer because it's for work and I need to use way too many proprietary windows-only programs to do my job. But does anyone recommend a script or tool for removing edge?
Whether you can uninstall it is region dependent. You can uninstall it in the EU.
https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
I believe there was one a few years ago, but I think Microsoft patched it, and it’s reinstalled every Windows update. I’m pretty sure there was a manual command-line way to do it, but I’m not sure if they’ve patched that feature, yet.
Set another default browser (Firefox/Chrome/etc.)
Unpin Edge everywhere
Block EdgeUpdate tasks in Task Scheduler
Optionally use policy: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate
This avoids Windows updates quietly reinstalling or repairing Edge, which is common after feature updates.
You can run a LOT of Windows applications in Linux with how good compatibility layers have gotten. And there are also VMs as a heavier option.
Granted, for work stuff maybe it would be more convenient not to switch, but it might be interesting to experiment!
A few months ago I was trying out bottles and virtualbox on my media server (already on mint) with a particular plc-programming program I needed, but I didn't get anywhere. I don't remember the issue I was running into specifically. I might have to try again soon though when I have spare time. I've always had my gripes with Windows and Microsoft but the last few years of the ai boom they've really shit the bed, and it's really making my job more of a headache than it should be.
If you’re faced with the tradeoff between security and another priority, your answer is clear: Do security.
~Satya Nadella, Microsoft Chairman and CEO, May 3, 2024
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/05/03/prioritizing-security-above-all-else/
So much for that I guess.
Ah, you see this does not apply here because there is no tradeoff.
You can get the behaviour of other browsers without changing the user experience at all.
CEOs and empty words go together like politicians and empty words.
go together like Mslop and security.
You don't understand; the mind bicycle believes otherwise, the mind bicycle is correct.
I misread the title as "microsoft edge-lords", an now I can't stop giggling.
You know... with the state of cybersecurity at the moment, I am not surprised at all.
“The state of cybersecurity” what’s that supposed to mean? Do you have any evidence it’s in worse state than it was, say, three years ago?
More lines of code exist now than three years ago, so following the law of developer incompetence, yes.
GenAI code that no one understands is being put into production...
It's always in the worst state.
Homer Simson: the worst state so far
What is a monotonic decrease?
(did i answer your Jeopardy prompt correctly?)
You did. You did the thing! You said cyber once more!!!
🤭
What's that, another incredible ~~bug~~ FEATURE of our lovely tech overlords?
"We could fix this but some people out there still like Windows and we're committed to putting an end to that nonsense."
Fucking hell lol
