top of page

How to Create a Strong And Memorable Master Key

In today's digital age, passwords are the first line of defense against cyber threats. Whether it's accessing your email, online banking, or social media accounts, a strong password is crucial for safeguarding your sensitive information. However, thanks to password managers, passwords can be easily, randomly generated, making them as secure as possible. The largest risk then becomes your master key used to access your password manager. It doesn't matter how strong your passwords are, if your master key is weak, all your passwords are at risk! Here is a guide for how to create strong yet memorable master keys.

Option 1 - Random Passphrase

The easiest way to create a strong and memorable master key is by generating a random, long passphrase. The pros of this approach is that its fast and easy, yet still secure. It also ensures that no attackers can crack your master key via social engineering or other related attacks. The con is that it can be harder to memorize since the phrase is 100% random.

​

To generate a random passphrase for your Vaultic master key, simply click on the dice icon in the field, set the type to 'Passphrase', make sure the length is set to 8 words or greater, and hit generate. When you see one you like, like confirm.

Option 2 - Custom Passphrase / Password Hybrid

Instead of generating a random passphrase, you can build your own. If done right, doing so gives you a easily memorable passphrase that is more secure. The con of this is that its a bit more work.​​​

Steps

  1. Have your master key relate to something about you or your life that only you know and that others wouldn't be able to find out

  2. Stay away from using easily accessible or public personal information, such as your name, birthdate, or anything that is available on social media. Hackers can easily find this information and use it against you.

  3. Create long phrases instead of just single words

  4. Include a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters in your password. Avoid using easily guessable sequences like "123456" or "password." Instead, mix them up and add special characters strategically.

  5. The longer your password, the harder it is to crack. Aim for a minimum of 20 characters. Anything less is or could become easily crack-able in the near future.

Examples

Now that we know how to create a strong a memorable password, lets try it out! The first step is:

 

  • Have your password relate to something about you or your life that only you know and that others wouldn't be able to find out

 

Some good examples of this would be a personal experience you had, or something unique about you or your life. For me, I could use things like:

 

  • I make 1 / 3 caffeinated coffee every morning

  • Most of my socks have holes in them

  • My dog likes to nibble on fingers

 

Now that we've come up with a few we can move on to step 2:

 

  • Stay away from using easily accessible or public personal information, such as your name, birthdate, or anything that is available on social media. Hackers can easily find this information and use it against you.

 

All three of the these are not available online, and only I, or a few others, even know about them. For step 3:

 

  • Create long phrases instead of just single words

 

Looking at the topics we choose, we can then turn these things into actual phrases. They could then be:

 

  • 1/3CaffeinatedCoffeeIsTheBestWayToStartTheDay

  • MyToesAlwaysSlipOutOfMyHoleRiddledSocks

  • MyDogAlwaysNibblesOnMyFingersWhenIWalkIn

 

Looking good so far! These are some nice passphrase, but to turn them into secure master keys we should move on to step 4:

 

  • Include a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters in your password. Avoid using easily guessable sequences like "123456" or "password." Instead, mix them up and add special characters strategically.

 

This is where we get creative and really make it difficult to crack out master key. We want to mix in numbers, and special characters to make it almost impossible to guess. We can even mix up the casing of the words as well. You should mix these into your phrases in a way that makes sense to you, as long as it isn't obvious.

 

  • Replacing 'o' with '0' is an example of a common substitution that should be avoided.

 

Lets start with the first phrase:

 

  • 1/3CaffeinatedCoffeeIsTheBestWayToStartTheDay

 

After playing around with it, I came up with:

 

  • 1Ca55inated/Co44ee3IsTheBestWay_TOSTART_TheD8

 

The steps I took to get to this were:

  • I separated out the 1/3

  • The 'f's in 'Caffinated' reminded me of 5's so I substituted them out

  • I also substituded the 'f's in Coffee, but with 4's instead of 5's. It's different but easy to remember since its just one less. Plus it goes 5-4-3 if you included the 3 from '1/3'

  • I put '_'s around 'ToStart' and capitalized it since I always read that part of the phrase a little emphasized.

  • I replaced 'Day' with "D8' since they sort of sound alike.

 

And there we go! I have an easy to remember password that is nearly impossible to guess or crack. Now lets do the other ones as well!

 

  • Tip: If you're struggling to come up with easy to remember substitutions, try pronouncing the words differently or saying the phrase in different tones.

 

For MyToesAlwaysSlipOutOfMyHoleRiddledSocks, I came up with

 

  • MyToe8Alway88lip-->>OfMyH[]:Riddled:Socks:(

 

The steps for this one were:

  • The 's's for me in 'Toes Always Slip' seemed to go together and since the 's' sound reminds me of a snake, I replaced them with an 8, which also kind of looks like a snake.

  • I replaced 'out' with an arrow '->', but double each character to make it more unique

  • I replaced 'Hole' with 'H[]' since the brackets kind of looks like a hole.

  • I then put ':' between 'Hole Riddled Socks' since I was reding the phases with a slight pause between those words.

  • I then ended with a '(' since it made a frowny face with the last colon, and my toes slipping out of socks is not good.

 

 

Another strong and memorable password created just like that! Now on to the last one:

 

  • MyDogAlwaysNibblesOnMyFingersWhenIWalkIn

 

For this one, I ended up with:

 

  • PUPPersAlwaysNi}}}}}lesOye!FingersWhenI~In

 

I got to this by:

  • Changing 'My Dog' to 'PUPPers' since I sometimes call dogs that. Also capitalized the 'PUPP' part since I usually yell at him when he does it

  • Replaced the 'b's in 'Nibbles' with '}' since it sort of looks like teeth sideways. I added 5 of them since I have 5 fingers that he nibbles on.

  • Replaced 'My' with 'Oye!' since that's what I say when he nibbles on them.

  • Replaced 'Walked' with a '~' since it has the same shape of the person walking emoji but sideways.

Memorizing

Now that you've created a strong and memorable master key the next step is to actually memorize it! Once you've settled on a master key you should write it down on a piece of paper and keep it in a safe, secure location, like a fireproof safe. You should then practice recalling your master key from memory every few hours until you have it down, only looking at the written down copy as needed.

bottom of page