What do you precisely keep on your servers and why ?

[Michel]

Hello,

May main question is in the subject :-)

I’m an user of the previous version and about security I’m not comfortable with the private key beign somewhere in the cloud.

Best regards

[SvanteSpectator]

Hello Michel,

It’s an important question to have a good answer for, so we’ve updated https://forum.axcrypt.net/documentation/technical/ with this information.

[michel]

Thank for your reply Svante.

Do not mind but that replies only at “what” and no at “why” :-) . More precisely, why to keep a copy of the private key, crypted or not, that’s not the matter. That would be a real concern for some of our cusotmers.

Best regards.

Michel

 

 

[Jeremy]

michel – not storing an encrypted copy of your private key would make it very difficult to share files with other people. It’s also a good idea to have an escrowed (stored on the server) private key in case of virus infection on the endpoint.

Having the key escrowed is no different to uploading an encrypted file to the cloud. If somebody can break into the encrypted private key then they could also break into the file without the private key. It makes no difference.

[Michel]

Hello Jeremy,

In my opinion, another people need only my public key to decrypt what I’ve encrypted with my private key, private means private :-)

Meanwhile, in a perfect world, if he’d edit the file and would send me it back, he should use his private key and myself his public key to read it.

I’m not sure how AxCrypt works on this point.

Michel

[SvanteSpectator]

Hi Michel,

Jeremy points out the gist of the matter.

The “why” for most of the information should be obvious, but let’s expand on the encrypted private key. Just as Jeremy states, it’s serves as a backup should your device be lost or destroyed. More importantly, we use it keep it synchronized across devices so if you have two PC’s or a mobile phone, we’ll automatically download the private key to your device so you don’t need to keep track of it.

As to the security, Jeremy formulates it perfectly: “Having the key escrowed is no different to uploading an encrypted file to the cloud. If somebody can break into the encrypted private key then they could also break into the file without the private key. It makes no difference.”

You’re mistaken when you say “another people need only my public key to decrypt what I’ve encrypted with my private key“. And it’s not a matter of opinon ;-)  Think about it. It doesn’t make sense. Your public key, is… public. Non-secret. If that was used to decrypt what you encrypted with your private key – where’s the security? It’s exactly the other way around.

It’s the public key that’s used when sharing with someone, but it’s the private key that is needed when someone shares a file key with you.

The public key of someone, perhaps yourself, gives anyone the capability to encrypt. But only the holder of the private key can decrypt that data. That’s why the private key is called private, because it’s private i.e. secret. It’s what enables you to decrypt something encrypted with your public, non-secret, key.

[Michel]

Right Svante and Jeremy :-)

My error is to have inverted the role of the private and the public key !

Thank for your replies.

Michel

[Frank M Leaver]

We have used AxCrypt for sometime.  We are able to access the files from multiple desktops but it as of yesterday we are unable to access it from one of the laptops that is most used.  It sill allow access from the remaining devices.

[Prabhukumar RModerator]

Hello Frank M Leaver,

Please avoid sending the same query in different mediums. You may get a duplicate response

AxCrypt will allow the users to decrypt the encrypted file with the original password which is used for encryption.

Please check do you login with the correct email address and password in the AxCrypt app.

I think you perhaps are not careful enough when you type the password – or you are not aware that upper and lower case characters are different, and spaces and accents are significant when typing the password.

I suggest you use the ‘show password’ option in both the web and the app, and ensure that what is type is truly identical. This means having the same casing, the same spacing, the same umlauts and accents etc. The following passwords are all different:

Not4real!Secrets

not4real!Secrets

not4real! Secrets

nôt4real!Secrets

not4real!Sècrets

AxCrypt will use the AxCrypt account password to encrypt/decrypt the files. The account password is used/involved to encrypt the files with the AxCrypt app.

If the above does not help, Please explain the more detailed information about the issue also some screenshot. we are trying to find the issue and fix the issue as soon as possible. Also you can write an email to our support team support@axcrypt.net.

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