KeePass Password Safe is an open source password management application that helps you keep all of your passwords secure with one master password. I know most users out there probably think there’s no reason for a personal password safe. I’ll bet you use one password for just about everything, right? While this certainly makes it easy for you to remember, it also makes it easy for thieves.
Just imagine you use the same password for only two services; email and Facebook. What happens when your Facebook account gets hacked? The thief has the email from your Facebook profile and now he’s in your email account. What do you keep in your email? Other passwords, account names, sensitive or personal information, your family and closest friends info, etc? It’s no longer paranoia because it can and does happen everyday.
The above scenario happened to someone I know very well. This person had their Facebook account hacked, the the hacker got into the victims email account, then sent out a sob story email to the entire address book asking for money to get out of a jam. (Which was on this persons birthday by the way…yay, Happy Birthday, you’ve been hacked!) It seems pretty legit when you get an email from someone close to you asking for money, but luckily one of the email recipients happened to be with this person when the email came through so this individual was able to let everyone know it was fraudulent rather quickly. Scary shizz.
If you’re like me, you have so many accounts that it would be impossible to remember them all if they were different. This is why a free password manager is a great idea. Now imagine you work in corporate IT and have local server passwords, multiple domain passwords, and countless application passwords, all of which change quarterly to comply with the company security policy. The simple truth is we couldn’t keep track of them all securely without some kind of centralized password database, so for us KeePass is a no brainer.
The need for personal password storage and protection is reason enough to check out this software, but that’s not all it offers. Be sure to stop by the KeePass features page to learn more about security, portability, user keys and more. I’d break it down for you here, but I couldn’t possibly “sell it” better than the folks who cooked this dish up in a lab.
Oh, and did I mention it’s free?