Free software to manage and organize your usernames and passwords

Introduce Free Password Manager - Password Safe

Password Safe is a password database utility. It can keep track of unlimited number of usernames / passwords and allows you to safely and easily maintain them in a secured and encrypted file. A single Master Password unlocks them all for your use.

Main Features

Store existing usernames, passwords, IDs, or whatever you want to keep. The smallest storage unit is an entry used for entering Group, Title, Username, Password, and Notes.
Generate random password for you based on the Password Policy you define. Random passwords are not dictionary words so are generally hard to guess.
Organize passwords by groups. Passwords used for the similar purpose can be added to a group. One group can contain one or more sub-groups.
Back up and restore password databases. Password Safe provides mechanisms for backing up and restoring password databases. One Password Safe can maintain many different password databases.
Password Safe allows you to keep the last few passwords that were used with a given entry, along with the date that they were set. This is useful to show compliance with password policies as required in some workplaces, and to revert to a previous password if a change did not take effect for some reason. An entry's password history is accessible via the "Password History" button in the Edit Entry dialog box.
Auto Type to easily and quickly enter username and password information with a single click. The user name and password are entered and the data is submitted to the login page for validation.
Import and export password entries. Password Safe allows you to import password information from text files. These files may be generated by other applications, exported from a spreadsheet, or even written by hand using Notepad or similar text editor.

How to download Password Safe

Password Safe is an Open Source project hosted at SourceForge.net. The latest program updates, documentation, and news can be located at http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net.

Password Safe is freely available and distributable under the restrictions set forth in the standard Open Source Initiative (OSI) "Artistic License." A copy of this license is included with the Password Safe installation package in the file named license.

The source code for Password Safe is available for inspection. Password Safe currently runs on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, and Vista, as well as Microsoft's PocketPC. Support for additional platforms is planned for future releases.

For any questions, go to Password Safe Discussion Forums.

How secure is Password Safe?

Password Safe uses the Blowfish encryption algorithm. Blowfish was originally developed and released to the public by Bruce Schneier and Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. Bruce Schneier is the author of Applied Cryptography and other books, creator of the Blowfish algorithm, and founder and CTO of Counterpane Internet Security.

Blowfish is a fast, free alternative to the DES and IDEA encryption algorithms. Details on the Blowfish algorithm, including speed comparisons and an extensive list of products that use Blowfish, are available at http://www.schneier.com/blowfish.html.

Here is a forum reply on Password Safe discussion forums:

The good news is that pwsafe is designed and implemented using the best currently known cryptographic practices, the source code is available for review, and we've changed the design and implementation more than once after receiving feedback from reviewers. Based on this, we believe that there's no known attack on a PasswordSafe database better than a brute-force attack on the pass phrase. We've also taken measures to make such an attack as hard as possible. I recall reading about a brute-force cracking tool that could only generate ~900 attempts per second on PasswordSafe using a fairly strong PC, this being among the lower rates reported (compared to other security solutions). The encryption algorithm that PasswordSafe uses, TwoFish, is considered secure, and I'm unaware of any weaknesses that would allow an attacker to derive information about the encrypted data with less effort than a brute-force attack.

The less encouraging news is that a determined attacker can find other ways to find the passphrase, outside the scope of PasswordSafe. Attacks on the operating system, keyboard loggers, shoulder surfing, etc. can give an attacker the information she seeks without having to mount a brute-force attack on PasswordSafe. However, if you take normal precautions (never run untrusted executables, open untrusted attachments, apply security updates regularly, etc.), you should be reasonably safe.

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