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How can I make a good Master Password?

No encryption can be any better than the password you use for that encryption. That is why you want KeePass to make long random passwords for you. But you must make the password to KeePass.

The 4 rules for a good passphrase:

  • Unguessable
  • Long (over 20 characters)
  • Wide: each character from a large pool of possible characters
  • Easy for you to remember and type

Two Steps to Great Passwords: for example,

You could start with a phrase like: I am happy with KeePass. Notice that it has upper and lower case letters and a symbol, but is without any numerals. It is already 24 characters long.
You Pad it. Since it is short on numerals and symbols, let's pad it with 333///adding 6 more characters. Six additional characters will make it over 500 billion times harder to crack (90^6). Another way to look at it is that it turns every minute of cracking time into a million years.

Your passphrase is now 333///I am happy with KeePass. At 30 characters it will take a computer which could attempt 100 billion guesses a second 6.90 hundred trillion trillion trillion centuries to guess your passphrase.

Your master password is entered by pulling down the File menu and selecting: Change Master Key...

Date: October 2011


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