Changing Your Passphrase

 

It’s a good practice to change your passphrase at regular intervals, perhaps every three months. More importantly, you should change your passphrase the moment you think it has been compromised, for example, by someone looking over your shoulder at the keyboard as you typed it in.

To change the passphrase for a split key, you must rejoin it first.

 

Tip: Changing your passphrase on your key does not change the passphrase on any copies of the key (such as backups you may have made). If you think your key has been compromised, Symantec Corporation recommends that you shred any previous backup copies and then make new backups of your key.

If you are in a PGP Universal Server-managed environment and your key mode is SKM, you cannot change the passphrase for your key. SKM keys are protected by a randomly generated passphrase (that is itself protected) and you are never prompted to enter a passphrase for an SKM key. 

 

To change your private key passphrase

 

1 Open PGP Desktop, click the PGP Keys Control box, and select My Private Keys.

 

2 In the PGP Keys work area, double-click the private key for which you are changing the passphrase. The Key Properties dialog box is displayed.

 

3 Click Change Passphrase. The PGP Passphrase Assistant is displayed.

 

4 Enter your current passphrase for the private key, then click Next. The Create Passphrase dialog box is displayed.

 

5 Enter your new passphrase in the first text field, and then enter it again in the Re-Enter Passphrase field to confirm the new passphrase.

 

To display your keystrokes as you type your passphrase, select the Show Keystrokes box.

The Passphrase Quality bar provides a basic guideline for the strength of the passphrase you are creating by comparing the amount of entropy in the passphrase you type against a true 128-bit random string (the same amount of entropy in an AES128 key).

 

6 Click Finish. Your passphrase is changed.