I Forgot My Cyclonis Password Manager Master Password. What Do I Do?

You might be wondering, 'Why would I want to store my passwords with Cyclonis Password Manager when Google Chrome can do the same thing for me?' There are a couple of good reasons for choosing a dedicated app like Cyclonis Password Manager over your browser.

Storing your login details in your browser is convenient, that much is certain. A few years ago, Google even implemented an autocomplete feature which means that Chrome can fill in online forms quickly. The trouble is, security researchers have been trying to poke holes through it, and they have been successful. Of course, the publicly disclosed security flaws were fixed, but you can never know when another bug will pop up. Crucially, you can never know whether the good guys will be the ones to catch it first.

Then, there's the matter of password storage. Chrome stores your usernames, passwords, and the rest of your data in encrypted format on the hard drive of your PC. Unfortunately, it also stores the key that encrypts and decrypts the data locally. What this means is that a hacker with physical access to your PC can steal the information along with the key and get your passwords. There are actually freely available tools that do the job automatically which means that the attack doesn't require any technical expertise whatsoever. Worse still, if your Windows account isn't protected by a password, seeing the passwords from chrome://settings/passwords takes no more than a few clicks.

Things won't work that way if you're using Cyclonis Password Manager. For one, the information saved in your vault can only be accessed with the master password you've set. The encryption and storage mechanisms are different as well.

Cyclonis Password Manager encrypts the information with AES-256, an algorithm used by financial and military institutions across the world. The key that encrypts the data comes from your master password. A hacker shouldn't see your master password, and neither should we. That's why, your master password is not stored or transmitted in any way.

As a result, we have no way of resetting it which means that if you forget it, we can't help you regain access to your data. You mustn't forget your master password. If you do, you'll have to reset the passwords to all the accounts saved in your vault.

It's a hassle you definitely don't want to go through. To avoid it, you need to create a strong master password that you'll never forget. Take a look at the tips we've given you in our "How to Create a Complex but Memorable Master Password" guide, and you'll see that, as daunting as it sounds, this is actually not that difficult.