Security > Passphrase Management

Icon_Warning Passphrase management is a crucial part of cryptography. If someone obtains your passphrase or can easily guess it, then any cryptography employed to protect your data becomes useless. You must choose an adequate passphrase and be careful not to expose it. If, on the other hand, you forget your passphrase to your data, you will not be able to decrypt your data.

A strong passphrase contains multiple words and may include spaces, numbers, and punctuation characters. Also, a good passphrase should be easy to remember but hard to guess.

The passphrase should contain uppercase and lowercase letters, numerals, or special characters (` ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ + - = { } | [ ] \ : " ; ' < > ? , . /). The passphrase should never be a single word in the dictionary, a common name, or a close variation on a common word or name.

The longer the passphrase is, and the greater the variety of characters it contains, the more secure it is. For most users, a good 13-character passphrase provides a good level of protection. A strong 18-character passphrase should resist powerful surveillance systems. Use passphrases longer than 63 characters to reach the highest level of protection, although passphrases can be up to 256 characters in length (*).

(*) Evaluation version passphrase is limited to 14 characters.