password safes for mac

Ivan Krstić krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu
Sun Jun 28 16:05:23 EDT 2009


On Jun 27, 2009, at 6:57 PM, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> Does anyone have a recommended encrypted password storage program for
> the mac?


System applications and non-broken 3rd party applications on OS X  
store credentials in Keychain, which is a system facility for keeping  
secrets. Your user keychain is encrypted with your login password, and  
items in it have application-level ACLs ("this credential can only be  
read by these applications"). The definition of "application" for the  
purpose of Keychain ACLs is derived from OS X code signing, so if  
someone tampers with one of your apps on disk, the resulting  
application won't get access to Keychain until you explicitly approve  
it.

You can inspect and modify your keychain with the Keychain Access  
application, which also allows you to add your own items.

--
Ivan Krstić <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | http://radian.org

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