Keepass - Don't Shoot Your Own Foot

I'm going to show you how to generate a password so that it would be so random that chances of a hacker hacking your password is 10 million to 1.

Okay, once you get comfortable with Keepass, there is something that you should know. It's not a potential danger but just that you might want to pay some close attention to the details that is being presented to you. Certain websites have certain limits on their password. For example, it might be limited to 12 characters only or you cannot use certain characters.



I have faced a a problem where I used more longer password. The site can only accommodate a maximum of 16 characters but I used 24. If I turn on two-channel auto-type obfuscation, it would generate the error as the text box could only take in 16 characters. But if I turn it off, it would type as normal and I would have no problem logging in. After a series of troubleshooting, I realize it was because I used a longer than 16 characters, which cause the system to type longer password than required. So before you input new password: read the notes specifying the maximum criteria before using the tool. It could save you tons of time.



From the explanation above, you could generate the password you wanted.



Before generating the password, read and read again the what are the types of character they can accept and how much they can hold.



Here you can see the generated password. Useful if you want a totally randomized password that no one would ever guess. Best of all, you cannot even hope to remember your password, which serves as a good point of using this software as your password manager.

Truecrypt: Part 3 - Ideas of Using Truecrypt

Basically now you should have learn how to create and mount your encrypted volume. So how do you utilize it?

Use it as a portable secure data.
After you have created the encrypted file volume, you can transport this file everywhere with a thumb drive. Truecrypt is also available on Linux so you're covered in terms of accessibility. A paranoid friend of mine does this: carry a Truecrypt volume on his thumb drive, and got the keyfile set up on another. Basically in order to access his volume, you would have to stick in the two thumb drives, doubling as security.

Back up your mail, address or even calendar.
If you're running a client email such as Outlook, chances are you're download your email into this archive file. This archive file could be moved into the encrypted volume and once the volume was dismounted, Outlook won't display the archive folder. This is an extra security if you want to keep your email private from prying eyes. Well, private as in nobody could access this without you mounting the volume first.

Storing Items on office server space
You want to backup personal accounts on company server but afraid your company's IT might take a look? Create a volume and mount it up as normal. IT should have a hard time. Better yet, use Keepass in conjunction for a total secure access in case they install a keylogger on your computer.

Keepass To Deter Keylogger and Clipboard Sniffer

Here's a scenario: you want to log in to your email, and you're afraid that people might have installed a keylogger software on your computer. How to you enter your password safely? My solution is to use this nifty little software called KeePass.

I'll skip the process of creating an entry, but if you need help, the Keepass website has a lot of examples on creating entries. What I'm going to show you is an auto-type option feature that feeds the data directly into the program. Let's use Facebook as an example. Make sure you have your browser open up the Facebook page.


1. After you set up your login ID, you should have an entry in Keepass. For this example, we use Facebook. Press Enter or double click into the option.


2. Select Auto-Type. Click Add.


3. On Target Window, select the Facebook browser. In my case, you need to choose Chrome with the option "Welcome to Facebook..." and click OK.


4. Back on the Auto-Type window, make sure you select "Two-channel auto-type obfuscation" and press Ok.


5. Back on the Facebook page, now make sure you have your cursor on your email/phone option.


6. Press CTRL ALT A. This action would automatically type your username and password into the page.

Theoretically, if you have sufficient security by having anti-virus or security software, you shouldn't have any issue about hackers catching your key logs. You basically worry if they can catch your clipboard. However, during Step 4, the auto-type obfuscation does insert random letters into the password. The software will then use clipboard to copy the modified password, and then uses some macro to remove the letters that was inserted into the password initially. And to top that, Keepass will automatically clear the clipboard when they have successfully transfer the username/password into the intended program.

There's another plus side of using this software to enter your username/password: you don't have to remember them ever again.