money in excel

[HI Bill]

I hope you changed the passwords to your bank accounts, as your records for MINT are on many many backups, as companies like that ensure they backup all the data in case of catastrophic failure.

Yes, I first deleted all logins from MINT. Then I asked MINT to delete my account. They said it takes 72 hours, so I'm still waiting. In the mean time, passwords have been changed.

 

[target2019]

Even if Plaid stores it encrypted, they need to decrypt it to make use of the plain text (since they don't know the banks encryption protocols).

So the simple fact that they use an algorithm that can be decrypted, means anyone grabbing a copy of their database has the possibility to decrypt it.

Plaid stores data encrypted, that has been decided. Because each trusts the other, they do know the other's encryption technology in use. This must be, since trust requires knowing the other guy is using standards you can trust. Everyone does not work in the dark...

I also mentioned in my guessing (I have no real knowledge of their operations) that there must be moments when encrypted/stored login and password are sent in clear. But that is still something we guess at. Exactly what happens in this process is not common knowledge.

When data is decrypted it is done so according to the security standard in play. So if you are referring to AES-256 (encryption of stored data) being broken by some bad guys, of course in theory everything will break some day.

https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/2251/how-secure-is-aes-256

New security methods and protocols are in constant development. A new standard evolves, gets accepted, and must be implemented. That is when things become challenging--your developer or institution lags mainstream standard (it costs money and takes time), and becomes increasingly vulnerable over time.

 

[target2019]

After finding a lawsuit (Case 3:20-cv-03056), and reading technical details and accusations, I would not use Plaid.

Now I wonder if any of the institutions with Plaid technology have seriously vetted what is going on.