This page describes BCRA's password safe, where all our passwords are stored. (Date as footer. Previous file date 09-Apr-2020)
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This facility is provided by KeePass. KeePass is a free open-source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can store all your passwords in one database on your personal computer, which is locked with a master key. So you only have to remember one single master key to unlock the whole database. Database files are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms available.
As well as providing you with a secure database, KeePass allows you to synchronise your database with other users. So, for BCRA's use, we have a master database on our web server, which synchronises with everyone's local databases on their PC. If I wanted to change a password – say the password for BCRA's bank account – I would alter it in my local KeePass database and then I would synchronise that database with the master copy on the web site. Other users can then see the new password as soon as they have synchronised their own local database.
At the moment, the BCRA database is just a trial. It was created in 2020 as a test, but is not in use by BCRA officers. Instead, BCRA is still sharing BCA's KeepPass database, which is accessible by the BCA IT team comprising Simon Mullens and Angus Sawyer, and the BCRA team of Dave Cooke and David Gibson. There are both pros and cons to having a database solely for BCRA officers and, at the time of writing, a purely BCRA-orientated database is not in use.
There is nothing to prevent individual BCRA officers from using KeePass for their own personal passwords, in order to get a feel for how it works. You could consider it to be an independent version of something like Google's password storage facility, and something easily sharable with a group of people.
You can create your own personal database file and you can store a backup copy on a web server or cloud drive (e.g. Google Drive, One Drive), which you can share with others if you wish. Please do not store your personal data on the BCRA web server. You could accidentally over-write the wrong file.
This is the list of information that you need to work with the BCRA password safe. For security this information is not on the BCRA web server. It is currently in the BCA password safe. (That is, you need to ask a member of the BCA IT team for this information).
The BCRA Password Safe is currently a trial. The data it contains is out-of-date so do not use it. Current information about BCRA passwords in in the BCA [sic] password safe.
If a BCRA officer finds themselves in a position where day-to-day access to BCRA password data would be useful, it would be the time to split off our own active password safe – so please ask the IT team to do this.
KeePass produces some arcane error messages.
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This page, http://mail.bcra.org.uk/keysafe_trial/index.html was last modified on Sun, 19 May 2024 14:21:53 +0100