Hello RP,
Here’s the thing – suppose indeed your password gets stolen! If one password gets “stolen”, you’ll have to assume all are in most cases. But with one strong password, you’ll at least be protected from the password being cracked, or guessed if it relates to your other passwords in any way.
If a password for AxCrypt-encrypted files is revealed for whatever reason, all files who were originally encrypted with that password will be possible to open. That’s just how it works, since AxCrypt is essentially still password based file encryption, although we do have some other features added on top of it.
But, what this means, is that if you do change your password for your AxCrypt ID you can still open all “old” files with their original password, as well as with the new one. For a longer discussion and explanation you might want to read http://www.axcrypt.net/blog/axcrypt-online-vs-offline/ . It’s about online vs. offline, but it ties into this very much.
You’re welcome to change your password every year, but it’s not something I recommend. Use a really good password, and keep keeping it secret. There’s not much additional security added by changing passwords unless you also at the same time re-encrypt *all* files encrypted with the old password.
Finally, always consider just what scenarios you’re really protecting against and take appropriate (not too large, not too small) measures based on that.
Svante.
