XKCD-password-generator VS KeePass2.x

Either use a password manager or a tool like xkcdpass.

Kinda like this, but personally we using in production /usr/share/dict/american-english-insane that create even more secure phrases that can be less than 6 words.

I use https://github.com/redacted/XKCD-password-generator.

Relevant XKCDs (There's always one) 1 2. For passwords, we're switching to a passphrase in the future, ditching complexity requirements, and setting a 25-character minimum. This may break things if you have legacy applications. Password are really rated using a metric called entropy, which is calculated using [char set]^[length]. Increasing the length has a greater effect on entropy, and therefore the security of a password. XKCD style passwords can be generated using a site like this, or implemented in a local application by implementing this Github repo. Even knowing how passphrases are generated a 5-word passphrase generated from a list of ~16k words is equivalent to a 14-character password with upper, lower, numbers, and 6 symbols as a character set.

you could generate a password with xkcdpass

If this C level is going to be stubborn about good password policy suggest a 6 word passphrase to him. They are easier to remember and type with around the same security as a full random large char set password. There are free web-based apps that do this, but if you're paranoid implement something like this github project in a local win app.

My word list contains 7227 words apparently, so 12.82 bits per word

https://github.com/redacted/XKCD-password-generator

Not sure how many bits a "good" password should be nowadays.

This for example - and you can see a working example here.

And the best part is there are solutions already that do this: https://keepass.info/

Does it work on Android or iOS?

🔗 KeePass

When you're at a point where you're relying on a display name to make security-critical decisions, you've already lost.

Character substitutions like ķeepass or ƙeepass or keypass are at least possible to spot if you know the name of the product, but not the full URL.

But there are many ways to create lookalike domains that don't change the product name: https://keepass.org https://keepass.net https://keepass.info https://keepass.cx https://keepassxc.org https://keepass-info.net https://keepass-manager.com

Which of these is the correct one? (It's https://keepassxc.org of course, but just looking at the URL won't tell you that.)

The root cause is downloading software you see advertised on Google even though that does not in any way establish trustworthiness.

> People love to hate on passwords but the reality is that for many circumstances (threat models) they are the best compromise. You can make them more than strong enough (take 32+ bytes out of /dev/random and encode however you like, nobody will ever brute force that in this universe) and various passwords managers solve the problem of re-use (never reuse a password).

> And it comes with the benefit that you control how it is stored and can apply as much redundancy as you want to feel comfortable.

Honestly, I agree! I used KeePass back in the day (https://keepass.info/) but now use KeePassXC (https://keepassxc.org/) and it's really nice - I don't know any of my passwords because they're all randomly generated and are pretty secure. The only one I have to remember is my main password for decrypting the safe, which I also wrote down and entrusted to someone close to me due to its complexity.

It honestly works great, software to interact with the password safe is on every platform where I need it to be, in addition to it being super easy to reason about storage, because it's basically just a file - that I can then put on self-hosted Nextcloud, or another solution like that, or USB sticks or burn to CDs for all I care.

Maybe I should also migrate all of my TOTP stuff over to it and look into good Android apps at some point, then I wouldn't quite need Google Authenticator or FreeOTP anymore, either.

If you have used this combo at many sites (which is of course not recommended) then download one of the available free Password Managers like Keepass, Bitwarden, Lastpass or any others you can find with a Google Search

I also tried out KeePass for a little bit but prefer the BitWarden apps. The key thing here is don't store your passwords in the cloud as they are massive target for hackers.

There are various Keepass add-ons, but I prefer the standalone version.

Best KeePass Windows desktop client: KeePass

If though you can't stand the idea of your password vault on a 3rd party server then you can use an offline password manager like KeePass. Of course, you have to take responsibility for making and storing backups of your vault in case something happens to your device. Fortunately, Syncthing can make this pretty trivial.