[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Sugs (& Napoleon),

The problem seems indeed to be a case of a forgotten password. There’s no need to downgrade to 1.7 to try decryption there, version 2 will open old files too.

As Napoleon says, if you can narrow down the possibilities, a brute force attack may work. In fact, you may perhaps try it manually – just open notepad or excel and then systematically type all the variants you think likely and then try them one after another.

There are no limits in AxCrypt to how many times you can try a ‘File Password’. The sign in prompt, which interacts with the server if you’re connect to the Internet, does have a limit.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello,

Thanks for all the feedback! We will be adding an option to always prompt for the password. You can follow and monitor the progress here: https://bitbucket.org/axantum/axcrypt-net/issues/186/add-option-for-requiring-password-every .

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hi Paul (& Lucas),

I need to correct Lucas on one point. AxCrypt is a password based file encryption utility. The AxCrypt ID key pairs used are for convenience in sharing and managing passwords. You will not lose your encrypted data if you lose your key pair. You can *always* decrypt a file if you have the software and know the password that was used when the file was encrypted.

In order to ‘nuke’ AxCrypt completely, it generally suffices to uninstall it via the control panel. Nevertheless, there are scenarios where some user and configuration data could be left on the computer. AxCrypt uses the following locations:

%localappdata%\AxCrypt in the file system for user data. This is always safe to ‘nuke’, even with AxCrypt installed (temporary decryption is done here, so working files may be deleted if you delete this folder entirely, but the installation as such will not be damaged).

HKLM\Software\AxCrypt

and

HKCU\Software\AxCrypt in the registry for configuration data pertaining to the Explorer integration, and the Windows Installer engine.

(It also adds file some shell integration stuff elsewhere, but that has no impact whatsoever on the ‘nuke’ aspect, and also these are removed during uninstallation).

The standalone version of AxCrypt, which does not require installation, does not use the registry at all but only the %localappdata%\AxCrypt location.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hi Robin (& Lucas),

As Lucas says, no there’s no connection with AxCrypt. Lucas is just an engaged member of the community, for which we’re grateful. He’s in his full right to point out alternatives, and I am very much for an open, honest and objective climate in these forums so I’m perfectly fine with suggestions for alternative softwares or solutions. AxCrypt is not perfect, not in version 1, not in version 2. Nor is any other product.

We’ll be continuing to develop AxCrypt  and for this to go in the right direction, we need input – be it positive or negative.

As mentioned elsewhere, we will be providing the option to request the password every time as a result of feedback. We may indeed also implement some model of use which is closer to the version 1.x, but that remains to be seen. Lucas is of course right that the AxCrypt 2 model does open up a few more attack vectors, but in each case we judge the benefit to be worth it. We are trying to make a product that is really useful for a large number of users, and this means we have to make tradeoffs from a theoretical zero knowledge model, in order to make the product useful in practice.

Finally, AxCrypt is indeed mostly suited for data transmitted over the Internet (i.e. email attachments), or stored remotely (i.e. cloud services, backups). For local device security I do indeed generally recommend full disk encryption or possibly file system level encryption such as Windows EFS, which is often well complemented by file encryption such as AxCrypt. Using file encryption software (be it AxCrypt, 7-zip or MS Office built-in) leaves quite a few holes on a local computer, that are more or less impossible to plug in the softwares themselves (temporary files, swap files, wear levelling in SSD etc). These holes are plugged very efficiently by full disk encryption. Similar arguments, but even more so, apply to mobile devices.

So, our recommendation is to use some kind of device or full disk encryption for local device security + some form of file level encryption for remote storage and transmission (we think AxCrypt is a good choice).

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hi Paddy (& Lucas),

We will be adding an option for “require password every time”, since it is such a frequent request. We really don’t agree with this, since we think it encourages other unsafe practices such as sharing a Windows Login between different users – even in a family. Nevertheless, it seems like the line of least resistance ;-)

On the case of passwords stored using AxCrypt, I’d like to point out that with the Premium subscription you’re also getting our Password Manager, which is both less costly and in many ways simpler to use than many other similar services. It is available for use from any device with an internet connection, including mobile devices.

 

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hi Neal,

Your “per-file” option is actually quite an interesting idea. Thank you. We may indeed do just that. Watch https://bitbucket.org/axantum/axcrypt-net/issues/186/add-option-for-requiring-password-every for progress.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Paul!

You’re misinformed fortunately. As opposed to Cloudfogger, you can decrypt your AxCrypt files at any time, with or without Internet, and with or without our servers or our business being operational.

As long as you have a copy of the software (and that’s pretty much spread around the Internet by now), and know the original password you can continue to use and decrypt your AxCrypt-encrypted files.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Robin,

You should use the “Erase Data” option if someone tries your passcode too many times. As mentioned, even if we did require the AxCrypt password every time, a phone is such a locked down environment that we could not guarantee it to be clean anyway.

The iOS level of protection against passcode attempts is actually pretty solid. The FBI did manage to get around it in an old iPhone 4S after several months and paying an undisclosed (but presumably significant) amount of money to a third party to bypass the protection. More recent versions of iOS does not have that particular vulnerability.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hi Neal,

Thanks for your input!

They say the customer is never wrong, but to be honest I have a hard time with this rather frequent request. I’m assuming you’ve read https://forum.axcrypt.net/blog/leaving-computer-axcrypt/ which is a longer dicussion about this.

But, yes, we’ll be adding a number of dangerous options like this one. I really, really think that it tends to reduce security because of the increased threshold of use and the likelyhood of avoiding long and strong passwords. But, we will add it as an option.

Stay tuned! Now the mobile apps are out, we’ll have more resources to work on the desktop application.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Earlier this week we released AxCrypt Mobile for Android.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.axcrypt.axcrypt2x

We also just released AxCrypt Mobile for iOS.

Thank you for your support.

Enjoy!

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Earlier this week we released AxCrypt Mobile for Android.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.axcrypt.axcrypt2x

We also just released AxCrypt Mobile for iOS.

Thank you for your support.

Enjoy!

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Earlier this week we released AxCrypt Mobile for Android.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.axcrypt.axcrypt2x

We also just released AxCrypt Mobile for iOS.

Thank you for your support.

Enjoy!

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Earlier this week we released AxCrypt Mobile for Android.

Now we have released AxCrypt Mobile for iOS.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/axcrypt/id1157695909?mt=8

Thank you for your support.

Enjoy!

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Earlier this week we released AxCrypt Mobile for Android.

Now we have released AxCrypt Mobile for iOS.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/axcrypt/id1157695909?mt=8

Thank you for your support.

Enjoy!

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Earlier this week we released AxCrypt Mobile for Android.

Now we have released AxCrypt Mobile for iOS.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/axcrypt/id1157695909?mt=8

Thank you for your support.

Enjoy!

[Author]

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