Security and recovery

The keys to your vault

Your vault opens with any one of these. Lose one and you still get in with the others:

• Your password.
• Your 24-character recovery code, shown once, when you create your first folder.
• A device passkey, if you turned it on.
• The rescue key, which this server does not hold and which is only used after verifying your identity with a card charge. It has its own section below.

Quick access with fingerprint or face

It is the second step of signing in, one gesture instead of typing six digits: password first, then the device. It does not replace the password — it used to, and that was fixed: whoever got hold of the device was getting in without even knowing your email.

You can register several devices, each with its own name, and delete any of them.

The server sees none of it: it only moves an encrypted blob that only that device can open, and verifies a signature.

The recovery code

It appears once, when you create your first folder. Download it and keep it away from the computer you work on. It is the second key to your vault: without it, a forgotten password leaves the vault shut.

The rescue key, and why it exists

There is a fourth key, for the one case where the other three are lost at once. We say it plainly, because it is what separates us from promising something we could not hold up: SHTERA is NOT a system where nobody can open your vault under any circumstance.

That key does not live on this server. It lives encrypted on a separate machine, at a different provider, that accepts incoming connections from nobody: it goes out itself to ask whether there are recovery requests pending.

And it is never used on its own. You request the recovery, we place a small charge on the card you have on file — between US$ 9 and US$ 10, with a code in the description — and you have to report back the exact amount, that code, and your new password. Only once that checks out does the separate machine open your vault, encrypt it again with your new password, and send you a one-time link. Every step reaches you by email.

What SHTERA cannot do

In day-to-day use we cannot read your credentials: there is no plaintext copy anywhere, and no button that reveals them. The one exception is the assisted recovery above, which requires the verified charge on your card and happens on a machine separate from the one serving your requests.

Keep your recovery code anyway. It is the difference between sorting it out yourself in two minutes and depending on a process with card verification.