Forums Help & support How to change Main password on Axcrypt 2.X Reply To: How to change Main password on Axcrypt 2.X

#4868 Reply

Svante
Spectator

Hi Shawn,

That’s the beauty of AxCrypt ID account which is based on public key technology.

When you change (not reset) your password for your AxCrypt ID account, *all* files previously encrypted with that AxCrypt ID account will automagically open with the new changed password.

Technically, this works because your AxCrypt ID is associated with a public key pair. Each file is encrypted with a random and unique file key. This file key is in turn encrypted and placed in the encrypted file. The file key is encrypted both with the original password using a symmetric encryption key wrap, but also with your AxCrypt ID public key.

When you change (not reset) your password for your AxCrypt ID account, essentially what happens is that you re-encrypt your private key of the key pair with the new password.

So, when opening a file when signed to your AxCrypt ID the following happens:

– Your private key of the AxCrypt ID is decrypted using your sign in password.
– The encrypted file key is located in the .axx AxCrypt encrypted file, and decrypted using the private key.
– The decrypted file key is used to decrypt the actual file contents.