Choosing the Password Magic Master Password

The Password Magic Master Password protects all the information in the Password Magic data base. The master password is the only password you need to remember. All your other passwords will be available to you in the data base. The master password is used to encrypt all the data so it needs to be chosen carefully to maximize the encryption strength. See "Strong Passwords" below.

Password Magic will prompt you for the master password whenever it needs to encrypt or decrypt some database information. To minimize typing Password Magic caches (stores) the password in memory while you are working. For security purposes, the password is purged from memory when it is not used for a period of time.

You must remember the Password Magic master password. If you forget it, the data in the data base will no longer be available to you. The password is not permanently stored in your PC and cannot be recreated.

The master password should be a strong password. A strong password is at least 8 characters long and contains upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. Special characters should appear somewhere in the middle of the password not at the beginning or the end. The password should not contain any words, names or dates as these can be broken with a dictionary attack.

You may want to base your master password on a phrase so that it is easier to remember. You can use the first character of each word and use numbers and special characters where they fit For example:

iH3c2G&aB -- I have three children. Two girls and a boy.

If you feel you must use a name or date to be able to remember the password, strengthen the password by combining a name, a date and a special character. For example.

Dog's name: Rover

Birth Year: 1960

Special character $

Password = R1o9v6e0r$ (Alternate the characters in the dog's name and the digits in the birth year)

It would be even better to place the special character in the middle: R1o9$v6e0r

The above technique gives you a password that is easy for you to remember, but appears to be random characters to anyone else.