gHacks technology news » password-safe

Password Software

Martin — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 09:46:16 +0000

Keeping track of all the different user accounts, passwords, security questions and emails associated with them is quite a daring task. Some users create all accounts with the same data, while others copy and paste the details into a text document. Then there is the group of users who write down passwords on paper, a group that lets the browser handle the data and a last group that is using password software.

Using a password software has some serious advantages over the other methods described in the first paragraph. Password softwares like MobileWitch Pass Safe use encryption to store the data which is obviously safer than relying on browsers or text files to store the passwords.

MobileWitch Pass Safe is a specialized product that is delivered as a Windows password software and a mobile client. That’s an excellent solution for the mobility problematic. It does not help if your passwords are securely stored on your desktop computer at home if you have to access them at work or university.

The first step is to create a new database and select a master password and / or keyfile for it.

The master password will be used to encrypt the database and is the only way to decrypt the contents and see the passwords.

The Password Software uses categories like Homebanking and eMail to sort user accounts. Each new user account that is entered into the software consists of a title, username, url, password, notes, an icon and expiration information. Some of the parameters are optional.

The strength of the password is shown in a strength bar and the program provides access to a password generator right from the new entry menu.

The password generator offers many functions and parameters which can be stored as password generation profiles so that they do not have to be edited during each password generation phase.

Pass Safe can import data from CSV, Codewallet and Password Safe and export the data as txt, xml or csv files. The password manager supports dragging and dropping usernames and passwords from the manager into another software. It provides several comfortable functions like double-clicking the password field to copy its contents into the Windows Clipboard.

The database will be stored in a file called Database.kdb which can be imported in the mobile phone version. There does not seem to be an option to create new passwords in the mobile phone version which means it can only be used to access the existing data.

Update: Password Safe has lots of similarities with Keepass, it uses an identical interface and it seems like the password software has been compiled using the KeePass source which is freely available. Since Keepass is offering the same functionality it is advised to download and use this password manager instead.

The link to Safe Pass has been removed until the matter is cleared.

Tags: pass safe, password generator, password manager, password storage, password-safe, windows passwords

Lockcrypt Password Safe

Martin — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:25:04 +0000

Where do you store your usernames and passwords ? In a text document on your computer ? In your wallet ? Storing sensible information like passwords, but also other type of data like information about medication or credit card numbers, unencrypted is a security risk. If someone is after those information he immediately knows how to use them against you.

One possible solution are Password Safes that can store an unlimited amount of text. Lockcrypt [homepage] which I discovered at Connected Internet [link] is one solution that works extremely well. The Java application stores all relevant information in a highly encrypted container which means that those information can only be accessed if the correct pass phrase is entered at the start of the application.

Lockcrypt uses a clean interface that is highly customizable to display the information once the login was successful. The left pane contains different accounts and subgroups that contain the information. You could create an account for financial information, one for Internet Passwords and one for Contacts for instance.

Each account has a number of subgroups that contain the information. Subgroups for Internet Passwords could be for instance the site names that you have accounts at, for Contacts the names of the contacts.

If you click on a subgroup its information will be displayed in the main window. The user can add as many fields that contain information as he likes. To stay with the Internet Passwords example, lets say you have a subgroup named Ghacks there. Fields could be the url of the website, the username and password.

Several default account types are available but it is also possible to create a new account type in the Options. Lockcrypt offers a password generator as well which comes in handy when creating new accounts.

A mobile version for mobile phones that support Java is available as well which can be used to store and view the information when you are out of house. The mobile version has however no option to add new entries to the database as far as I can tell.

Lockcrypt should work in all operating systems that support Java.

Tags: lockcrypt, password, password-safe, software, Windows

Create a secure data safe with True Crypt

Martin — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 21:59:34 +0000

This article is going to show everyone, even the inexperienced, how to create a data safe that can store as much personal information and files as you want using the open source program True Crypt. True Crypt makes it very easy to encrypt almost every piece of hardware including partitions, hard drives, usb keys and other storage devices. Once everything is setup you would mount the True Crypt container using the password that you have selected while creating the encrypted container. This is actually the only password that you have to remember, everything else can be kept in the encrypted container for safety reasons. A big advantage is the fact that you can start any applications from that container once it is mounted, this includes torrent clients, ftp clients, usenet clients and everything else that you can think off.

True Crypt is available for Linux and several Windows editions including Vista and XP. Please download the software from the location above and install it afterwards. The only other thing that you need is some free space on a hard drive or a storage device. I would suggest an usb key for instance, size does not really matter that much. If you ask me I encrypted a complete external hard drive with 320 Gigabytes of space that stores my private files that no one else should be able to access.

Launch True Crypt
Click on Create Volume
Create a Standard Volume, click Next
Decide if you want to encrypt a device or create a encrypted container. Select File creates an container of x megabytes that you specify, select device encrypts the device. I’m using the second option for my hard drive but this is really up to you and does not change the data safe that we create
If you select File: Browse to a location that you want to store the file and name it, something like test, data or whatever. Click save, then next.
Select an encryption algorithm, AES is fine for instance. Click Next
Select a file size for the container. It should be at least some megabytes, the limit is the space on the device that the file is created on
Create a secure password that you can remember. Write it down for the first time if you want to be sure that you do not forget it. Get rid of that paper as soon as possible.
Click on Next, move the mouse around for a minimum of 30 seconds and click on format afterwards.
A message should appear that the container was created.
To mount it simply select a drive letter that is not taken and click on Select File and browse to the file that you created
click on mount and enter the password that you have selected during installation
If everything worked out fine the container should be mounted and you can use it like any other drive letter.You could for instance move important files into the container or create a textfile that contains all of your passwords.
do not forget to unmount the partition if you leave the computer for a longer time. Booting or shutting down automatically unmounts the drive.
It would be nearly the same process if you want to encrypt a whole partition or drive.
Instead of selecting a file at the beginning you select the drive letter of that partition and follow the same menus as before.
Mounting it is similar as well, you only click on Select Devices instead of Select File before you click on mount

So, where are the advantages of this method over tools that work like password safes ? The main advantage is that you can not only store passwords in the encrypted container but also files and everything else that you can think off. Just move the files inside and no one can access them unless they can provide the password to this True Crypt container.

As I said earlier True Crypt works with big hard drives and there is no visible loss in speed during read and write operations. The devices work as usual once mounted. You could for instance run your favorite torrent client from that drive saving those torrents on it as well.

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