KeePass-A safe place to keep passwords

Passwords--how many of them do YOU have?  If you are like me there could be dozens upon dozens of passwords for various purposes that you may have to remember.  For example, PC/Server passwords, email addresses, website or FTP passwords, social networking site passwords, online passwords of all types, and etc.  Not only do these passwords need to be set up and managed, but often times passwords are required to be changed.

And because of this, keeping all of this information safe, but accessible at the same time could be overwhelming for some.  So some may be tempted to (shuttering at the thought) keeping the passwords written down and located next to your keyboard, monitor, unlocked drawer, and ........well you get the idea.  But just as bad is having just one password setup for all or most of your accounts.  These practices are highly risky for a number of reasons, but primarily because of network security breaches and identity theft becoming more and more common, these two practices are NOT recommended at all.

So how can you manage all of those passwords, and safely at the same time?  Well there is something called KeePass that can help.  Now you might be thinking..."how much does it cost?"   KeePass is an open source product and is absolutely free.  And I use it to manage all of my passwords. I first found out about KeePass when I tried Portable Apps, which is a suite of open source products that you can access from your USB drive.  Now I am thinking of writing a blog about Portable Apps, but this blog is about KeePass.

KeePass uses secure algorithms to encrypt passwords, all within a database that you can manage with one master key file or password.  If you still think that is not good enough, you can set KeePass to only open for the Windows user name of the person creating the KeePass database.  One thing I also suggest is to save the actual database which is stored in a .kdb file as a backup somewhere else just in case you lose the USB device or location where KeePass would normally be accessed.  Make sure to sync that off site database so it stays consistent with the one used most often.

So take a look at KeePass in more detail here and see if it can help simplify all the passwords in your life.