Patent attributes
A secure mechanism for transparent key recovery for a user who has changed authentication information is disclosed. A password manager agent intercepts requests by a user to access secure resources that require user credentials. Upon detecting changed authentication information for the user, the password manager agent automatically regenerates the components of a cryptographic key associated with the user that was previously used to encrypt user credentials for the user and then destroyed. After regeneration of the original cryptographic key, the password manager agent uses the key to decrypt the user credentials necessary for the requested application. The regenerated key is then destroyed and the user credentials are re-encrypted by the password manager agent using a new cryptographic key associated with the user made up of multiple components. Following the re-encryption of the user credentials, the components used to assemble the new key are securely stored in multiple locations and the new key is destroyed.
