PGP Whole Encryption – A catastrophic bug!
I am using (actually I am evaluating) PGP Whole Encryption for a while:
I created a passphrase synchronized with the Windows account of the user “Sid” for the main volume of the laptop.
Some days ago I changed the password of the “Sid” user of my home server (Windows 2003 Enterprise) via Remote Desktop (that password used to be the same as on my laptop, quite weak, but as I have personal data on it I decided to change).
Today I turn on my laptop and PGP Whole Disk does not recognize my pwd! I am sure: all my data will be lost… maybe it was a partition header failure… but the last time the computer shutdown was ok… strange…
After a while I thought: “Hey, maybe developers @ PGP are stupid!”. Luckily my new server password (something like “.o^v4^LqYX5%wscf+@JSF5z”) was stored in a KeePass file under the Documents folder on my laptop and synched with my PocketPC. I typed all my long and strange password with an Italian keyboard and then my Windows booted up. I won. PGP Whole Encryption sucks: this is not a minor bug! I thought they would have tested the “sync feature” heavily!
By the way, it is not finished:
I went to change the password but it was not allowed: “Please use Windows to change the passphrase of an SSO user”.
Ok, the user was “Sugata/Sid” so I decided to create a new user named “Sid“. No error, but seems that nothing has changed. Ok, let’s create a “test” user just to delete “Sugata/Sid”. But when unlocking the disk (with the “Sugata/Sid” pwd, an error occurs: “The passphrase did not match“).
Creating the “Sid” user actually changed the pwd of the “Sugata/Sid” user! No message about that! Bleah.
I am sending an e-mail to PGP about this bug, I will let you know about the reply.
[Update 28/01/2008] PGP has not replied to my bug report.
I have the exact same scenario now and cannot boot up my laptop? I also used the synch feature…unfortunately I have no idea where to find another password from and cannot get past the boot screen? any suggestions??? laptop booted down fine then just does not recongnise my pass at all…?
What do you mean? The solution is written above: you have to use the new Windows’ user password in PHPWE boot screen…
i never changed the windows password!
@justin: …so you don’t have this scenario… please explain your situation: you encrypted the disk with PGP-WE synching the password, and now PGP-WE does not accept your user password? Have you tried with your password and the administrator password? Which version of Windows are you running?
OK… the whole story is that I am running Vista SP1 and i have had PGP WDE for a while now. I never changed my password at all, I simply logged off my machine last night, it run a normal shutdown, then this morning it does not accept my password at all, the same password I have been using all along.
@Justin: quite a strange behavior, don’t know why this could happen. I suggest you to contact PGP support.
Has anyone gotten any response back from PGP Support about this? I’m having the same problem with two laptops and getting nowhere fast with PGP.
Sid, can you perhaps dig out an exact copy of the passphrase you had to use to unlock the machine please? It might be worth our trying it too.
Thanks,
Trevr.
@Trevr: I’m sorry, I don’t have that password anymore, however I can not see how that could be useful since it was a custom generated password…
@Sid: Thanks Sid, no worries, the custom generation was done by your home server then?
@Trevr: I used KeePass