4 Ways to Improve Your Password Management and Stay Secure
January 10th, 2008 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 20 CommentsTweet This
If you’re like me, your list of passwords for both personal- and work-related sites and applications has ballooned in size and calls for management. Even worse, if you’re like a lot of people your password collection may be so large that you’ve developed bad habits. It’s very common, for example, for people to respond to the problem of password list bloat by using the same passwords over and over at numberous sites–a security no-no. Or, even in the cases of very tech-savvy people, it’s not uncommon for passwords to be stored on a business card in, say, a wallet–also a no-no. In this post, I’ll round up some free, easy-to-access password management utilities, including choices for Windows and Mac users.
PassKeeper (see above) is my application of choice for storing and managing passwords. The footprint of the program is only 85K, it’s fast to get in and out of, and it encrypts my password records. You can name your stored account login information anything you want, but I find the handiest solution is to name my logins according to the sites they pertain to, such as WordPress for my WordPress.com login information. After that, it’s a one-click step to do a login.
Password management utilities are ideal applications to keep on a USB thumb drive, so that you can have your information available whereever you are. If you’re on the hunt for an extremely compact password manager to store on a thumb drive, Passpack is the tiniest one I know of, with a footprint of only 15K.
The two programs above are Windows applications. What if you use the Mac? CiphSafe is a free, simple Mac OS X password manager, and it uses 320-bit Blowfish encryption, so you won’t lose your information. Like PassKeeper, it has a very simple interface and is quick to get in and out of.
What if you want to go beyond simple password management? RoboForm is an excellent application for storing and managing passwords, but it also excels at filling out forms for you. You can store a filled-out form containing your personal information as an Identity file and have it automatically entered when you need to register at a site. RoboForm is free to try but costs $29.95 if you like it. Note that there is also a RoboForm2Go application if you want to store RoboForm on a USB drive.
How do you store and manage your passwords?
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Hi Samuel,
In Linux, I use Revelation (http://oss.codepoet.no/revelation/) for most passwords. Passwords for ftp sites, wireless networks, email through evolution, etc, are stored in a central location by SeaHorse (at least in Gnome), which is accessed with a single password.
Cheers
For the Mac, I think 1Password is a winner. Very secure, easy to use and reliable.
I have used Roboform for years and love it. It will even generate random passwords for you.
A security guy at an electric company told me that over 50% of the passwords were either ‘password’ or ‘jesus’.
I use KeePass for storing my passwords. It’s open source, and is on Windows and on Mac (KeePassX on the Mac).
Since I work on a PC and play on a Mac, this is a very useful little program. I keep my passwords database on a USB thumb drive for maximum cross-platform goodness.
I also use KeePass.. It has a great interface!
Yes, KeyPass is a great tool – they even have a “portable” edition on portableapps.com
I also use Keepass and I strongly recommend it, both for its robust features, attractive interface and portability. I run it from a usb drive, so I always have my accounts info near at hand (encrypted under a master password). Of course, I also keep a synchronized copy of the database in two hard disks, so in the emergency of losing the pendrive I’d only have to re-download the opensource KeePass.
I use Shibbo as an online service for managing passwords. When you enter the passwords, it tells you if the password exists in the common password dictionaries.
KeePass is my choice as well. At work alone I have about 7 passwords that I have to know and all are required to be in a certain format. KeePass makes it easy for me with a passwrod gererator. Like Joan says, I always keep a back up as well. Safe and sound.
I use Passguard http://www.passguard.com/ It’s great if you need to get to your passwords from more than one computer. Works on IE and Firefox.
I used to use KeePass, but have now changed over to the KeePass Portable version as I am constantly moving around between about 10 Win machines (all with USB).
I also keep a copy of the database on my backup external hard drive, off site and updated monthly along with my machine images.
A great program.
This is great–and so well timed. I’ve been worrying about this for a couple weeks now because, as you say, the need for passwords has ballooned!
I use Keynote (the greatest free software in history: http://sourceforge.net/projects/keynote/) to organize just about everything, including passwords. It includes strong encryption.
I also use the portable version of KeePass. Works excellent. I also like the fact that it offers a way to generate strong hard to guess passwords and offers AES encryption.
I used to use PassKeeper until I found Passphrase Keeper.
http://www.swidgets.com/download.htm
For years, I’ve been using SplashID for my Palm device. It’s a nicely encrypted program for your Palm which works well for storing passwords, account numbers, memberships, subscriptions, etc. I sync it between my palm, my home and my work computers so I always have my info handy. Check it out at the link below:
http://splashdata.com/splashid/index.asp
I’ve been using Password Corral for a few years and find it works well. The UI isn’t as fancy as KeePass, but it’s small and works well. Also doesn’t require installation and can easily run from a USB drive.
I’ve been using Passwordmaker for years – it has a bit of a learning curve and a couple of areas could be improved but I’m extremely happy with it and would recommand it to anyone who has a little computer knowledge. Comes as a Firefox extension, Opera widget, desktop (windows and MAC) widget, on-line version, etc..
http://passwordmaker.org/