How do you secure your passwords? As a sys admin you probably have countless accounts and I hope you don't use the same password for all of them. I use by far too many passwords to remember them all. Writing them down is the only solution.
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One way certainly is to note them on a normal piece of paper and deposit it on a safe place. The other option is to encrypt your passwords then save them in a file. For extra security you can store the file on a USB stick which you only plug in when you need access to the file. If someone finds out your master password he still has to get your USB stick.
There are many password savers with nice features. But sometimes the simplest solution is the best. That's why I chose Locknote to secure my passwords. This free tool doesn't' have to be installed and therefore runs also from an USB stick. It works like a normal editor, but it doesn't save a text file on the hard disk. The text entered in the editor is stored together with Locknote's exe file. The tool encrypts your information using AES with a 256 bit key. If you want to make a copy of your passwords you can just copy the complete exe file.
Locknote's edge over other password savers is that you can secure any text file with it. Entering new accounts is very fast, as one doesn't have to fill out several fields. There is only one disadvantage of Locknote. A password saver will usually ask you twice to enter the password of a new account. But mistyping a password using Locknote means probably running into serious problems later. I recommend entering the password first in Locknote and then to copy and paste to the registration form.
Hi Michael, Locknote is an interesting tool I must say. I believe your link to the website is not working and redirects to home software. The correct link is:
http://www.steganos.com/us/products/for-free/locknote/overview/
Jay, thanks! I corrected the link in the article.
Hi Michael,
thank you for the LockNote recommendation! The idea of asking twice for a password entry is nice. We’ll think about it!
Best regards from Berlin,
Gabriel Yoran
Steganos Software GmbH
Locknote link is not available
It seems the tool is now available as open source.
Hi Michael,
I realize this is a very old post, but perhaps you will be interested in checking out Cobbler, which I wrote as Locknote (and other similar tools for Windows) did not meet all of my security requirements. There is a description of Cobbler in this post, and more information will follow soon : https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/cobbler.391875/
Cheers,
FS1
@hexatomium