Password Shield is a security program that allows you to input a password into a field on a Web form or similar input box without actually knowing or seeing the password. Password Shield will only input the password into a masked input box, so even when the password has been input, the user does not see the password. This is useful for companies that need to give their employees access to certain secure systems but do not want to actually give these employees the passwords. A typical example would be a company that needs to allow their employees to remotely access other companies' computers to do maintenance work, but does not want to give the employees the actual system passwords they have been entrusted with. Another example would be a company that needs to give its employees access to the company PayPal or online bank accounts, but does not want the employees to have the passwords, which they might then use to access the accounts from home.
One very nice feature of Password Shield is that to send a password to an input field, an employee must first sign onto Password Shield with their own individual password. Once someone signs on, Password Shield keeps a log of all the passwords that person uses. If any suspicious activity occurs in the account, you can check the log to see who was signed on at that time. It even records unsuccessful attempts to put the password into an unmasked text box, where it could be viewed.
Another nice feature of this program is that many spyware keyloggers cannot intercept the password that is sent from Password Shield to a program or Web site. This is because Password Shield sets the password directly into the text box, rather than sending keystrokes. Key logging is a common method of stealing passwords and other information. Although we cannot guarantee absolutely that spyware cannot steal your passwords, Password Shield does reduce the probability that any spyware on your computer will be able to obtain your passwords.
Shareware Notice
Password Shield is distributed as shareware. This means that you can try it for one month to see if it fits your needs. You want to continue using it after the end of this trial period, you must pay for it by sending the registration fee of $25.00 (US) to
David Leithauser
Leithauser Research
821 SnapDragon Drive
New Smyrna Beach, FL 32168
This is a one-time fee for one computer (volume discounts are available). Once you pay the fee, you can continue using Password Shield on that computer indefinitely. If the computer crashes or you replace it, you can install Password Shield on another computer at no additional charge, as long as the number of computers with Password Shield installed on it does not increase.
If you do not pay the registration fee within 30 days of the time you start using it, Password Shield will stop functioning until you pay the registration fee. Once you input the registration code, Password Shield will resume working.
For further instructions, click on the "Register" menu on the Password Shield main screen. This will show the Register page with further instructions, and a "Print" button that will print a form you can mail in to register Password Shield. When you pay for Password Shield, you will receive the registration code, which you can then input in the Register window.
Initializing Password Shield
When you first run Password Shield, it will ask you to select an administrator password. This password is VERY important. You will need it to make any changes in the Password Shield setup. Input the password and click on the "OK" button. Note: The passwords you create are case sensitive, so be sure to remember how you capitalized it when you created it.
Setting up Password Shield
Once you have installed Password Shield, the first thing you must do is set up the information on the sites you want to store the passwords for and the users (most likely your employees) who will be accessing these sites.
Setting up new site information
To set up new sites, click on the "Sites" menu on the menu bar of the Password Shield main screen, then click on the "Add Sites" option. You will be asked to input the administrator password. Once you input this password and click on the "OK" button, you will see the Site setup form.
This form has a list of sites you have already set up near the top. Below this, there are text input boxes for the site name, the site password, and the form title.
The site name is any name you want to call a site where you input a password. The name can be anything. It will be displayed later in a list where you choose which site you want to input a password for. Input a site name and press Enter or tab to go to the next input box, the site password box.
The site password is the password that you need Password Shield to input to access the site. Type this password and press Enter or tab to go to the next text box, the form title box.
The form title is the title displayed in the blue bar at the top of a Windows window. Giving this is optional. If you provide the title bar text of the window that the employee will be inputting the password into, Password Shield will only input the password into this window. It is a double check to make sure the password is going into the right place. You can leave this blank, in which case Password Shield will not check to make sure it is inputting the tile into the right form. (It will still confirm that the text box is a masked text box.) If you do provide this, it must be precisely right. In order to make this easy, Password Shield provides a way to automatically fill in this information. If you click on the "Autofill" button and then click on a window, Password Shield will input the title bar text from that window into the text box. That way, if you can run the window where you will be inputting the password, you can just click on the "Autofill" button and then click on that window to fill out this text box.
Once you have filled out the three text boxes (or left the third one blank), you can click on the "Add" button to add this site to the list. If you already have users set up, Password Shield will ask you if you would like to automatically add this site to all the users access lists. If you click on the "Yes" button, Password Shield will add this new site to all the users' lists of available sites.
You can repeat this process to add as many sites as you like. When you are done, click on the "Close" button or press the Esc key on your keyboard.
Editing site information
You may occasionally want to make changes in the site information of a site you have already set up. The most likely occasion would be if a site password changed, or the site form title bar changed. If you want to make changes in the site information, click on the "Sites" menu on the Password Shield menu bar and then on the "Edit Sites" option. Password Shield will ask you for the administrator password. Once you have input this password, you will see the site setup window again. This window is essentially the same as the window you saw when you were adding sites. The main difference is that the "Add" button is now labeled "Change."
To change a site's information, click on a site from the list of existing sites. This will cause the information about that site to be filled in the text boxes. Change whatever information you want, then click on the "Change" button. You may repeat the process for as many sites as you like. When you are finished, click on the "Close" button or press the Esc key to return to the main Password Shield window.
Deleting sites
To delete a site entirely from the list of sites in Password Shield's data base, click on the "Sites" menu and then on the "Delete Sites" option. Password Shield will ask you for the administrator password. Once you have input this password, you will see the site setup window again. This window is essentially the same as the window you saw when you were adding sites. The main difference is that the "Add" button is now labeled "Delete."
To delete a site, click on a site from the list of existing sites. This will cause the information about that site to be filled in the text boxes. This is for verification only. You will not be able to change any of this information. Once you are sure you have selected the site you want to delete, click on the "Delete" button. You may repeat the process for as many sites as you like. When you are finished, click on the "Close" button or press the Esc key to return to the main Password Shield window.
Exporting and importing sites between computers
You may want to use Password Shield on more than one computer, and you may have a lot of sites that you set up information about. If that is the case, you might find it convenient to be able to create a file of site information and use it to copy the site information from one computer to another. Password Shield let you do that. After you have set up the information on all the sites that you want to access using Password Shield, connect some type of external drive (such as a flash drive) to the computer. (You MUST do this BEFORE proceeding to the next step.) Next, click on the "Sites" menu and then on the "Export Sites" option. Password Shield will ask for your password. Once you input this password, Password Shield will display the "Export site list" form.
The "Export site list" form has a drop down list box that lets you select the drive you want to export the sites list to. Select a drive from this list, then click on the "OK" button. Password Shield will save an encrypted file to the root directory of that drive.
Connect this external drive to another computer that has Password Shield installed on it. Run Password Shield and click on the "Sites" menu. Then click on the "Import site list" option. Password Shield will ask for your password. Once you input your password, Password Shield will display the "Import site list" form.
The "Import site list" form has a drop down list box that lets you select the drive you want to import the sites list from. Select a drive from this list, then click on the "OK" button. Password Shield will load the site information from the encrypted file on the root directory of that drive and update its site information. Any previous site information will be lost. Site information is NOT added to existing information.
Note that is it necessary to plug the external drive into the computer before Password Shield displays the "Export site list" form or the "Import site list" form. If you do not, that drive will not appear in the dropdown list box of drives, even if you connect it afterward.
Once you have copied the site information to all the computers, you should delete the sites file from the portable drive. Although it is encrypted, it is probably best not to leave a file containing the site passwords laying around.
Adding new users
Once you have set up the site information, you need to set up information for authorized users of Password Shield. This information consists of the user name, a different password for each user, and a list of sites that each user is allowed to access. To add users, click on the "Users" menu at the top of the main Password Shield screen, then on the "Add users" option. You will be asked for your administrator password. Once you input this password (This password is case sensitive.), you will see the "Add new user" window.
Input the name of the new user in the top text box. Press Enter or Tab to move to the second text box. Input a password for this user to use when they want to use Password Shield. (You should give each user a different password.) Then press Enter or click on the "Add" button. You will then see the user information form.
This form lets you select which sites a user has available to access. The top list box shows the sites that the user does not yet have available to access. The list box below this shows the sits you have made available to this user to access. To add a site to the available list, click on a site from the top box and then click on the "Add" button. You can add all the sites at once by clicking on the "Add All" button. To remove a site from the available list, click on a site from the second list box and click on the "Remove" button. You can remove all the sites by clicking on the "Remove all" button. When you have finished selecting the sites you want to be available to this user, click on the "Close" button. You will then see the "Add User" window again. This is to allow you to add another user. If you do want to add another user, input another user name and password to repeat the process. If you have no more users to add, click on the "Cancel" button to return to the main Password Shield screen.
Editing user profiles
To edit a users information (their password or the sites they have access to), click on the "Users" menu and then on the "Edit Users" option. Password Shield will ask you for the administrator password. Once you have input this password, you will see the site setup window again. This window is essentially the same as the window you saw when you were adding users. The main difference is that you can now see a text box labeled "Password." You will also notice that a user name does not automatically come up in the box labeled "User."
To edit user information, first select a user from the dropdown box labeled "User." Selecting a user will fill in the password for the user in the password box and will display in the list boxes the sites currently available and unavailable to this user. You can change the password by simply editing the text in the password box. You can add sites to the user by either clicking on a site name displayed in the "Sites not available to this user" list box and then clicking on the "Add" button, or by clicking on the "Add all" button. You can remove sites available to this user by either clicking on a site in the "Sites available to this user" list box and then clicking on the "Remove" button or by clicking on the "Remove All" button.
After you have made a change in one user's information, you can switch to another user by clicking on another name in the "User" drop down box and repeating the process. When you have finished editing all the users you want to, you can return to the main Password Shield window by clicking on the "Close" button.
Deleting users
You may occasionally what to remove a user from the system. To do this, click on the "Users" menu and then on the "Delete Users" option. Password Shield will ask you for the administrator password. Once you have input this password, you will see the "Delete Users" window.
To use this window, simply click on the name of any user in the list box and then click on the "Delete" button. When you have deleted all the users you want to, click on the "Close" button to return to the main Password Shield window.
Using Password Shield
Once you have configured Password Shield by setting up the sites and user accounts, you are ready to allow the users to use Password Shield. The main screen starts out by showing a drop down box labeled "User," a text box labeled "Password", and a check box labeled "Mask user password."
The user should select their name from the user dropdown box. If there are many names in the box, they can also press the keyboard key of their name until that name appears in the box.
Once their name is in the "User" box, they should type their password into the "Password" box and press the Enter key on the keyboard. If they want to conceal the password as they type, they can check the "Mask user password" box before typing their password. Note that passwords are case sensitive. They must type the password with the same capitalization as the password was set up with. Once they have input the correct password and pressed Enter, the password box will disappear and they will see a list box of the sites they have access to.
To input a site password into a password box, display the screen that asks for the password. For example, if they are inputting the password into PayPal, go to the PayPal sign-on page. Input the other information, such as user name. Then click on the site name in the Password Shield sites list box. The list box will disappear and the window will display a message telling you what site Password Shield is prepared to send the password for. Click on the text box on the site screen where you want to input the password. The password should appear in the text box, although it will be masked.
During the time between when you click on the site name on the site list and the time you click on the password text input box on the site log-on screen, an "Abort" button is visible. You can abort sending the password by clicking on this button. Once you have input the password into a password box, this button will disappear and the site list will reappear until you select another site from the Password Shield site list. Note: Occasionally, due to a timing glitch, the password will no appear in the password input box when Password Shield indicates that it has. If this happens, simply repeat the process until it does.
When a user is finished using Password Shield, they should exit the program. They can do this by clicking on the "File" menu and then the "Exit" option, or by clicking on the small X in the upper right corner of the Password Shield screen. If they do not want to close out the program entirely, they should select a new name from the "User" drop down both. This will log them out of the program and cause the site list to disappear. If they leave the program running with the site list visible, anyone can come along and access these sites.
View a log of sites accessed
Password Shield keeps a record of who send passwords to what sites, and when. To view this record, click on the "File" menu and then on the "View Log" option. Password Shield will ask you for the administrator password. Once you have input this password, you will see the View Log form. This form shows a list of the date and time each site was accessed (the password was sent to it), the site name, and the user who accessed the site. If the list is longer than the list box, a vertical scroll bar will appear on the right side of the list box to allow you to scroll through the list. When you are finished viewing the list, click on the "Close" button or press Esc to return to the main Password Shield window.
Deleting the log of sites accessed
If the list of sites accessed becomes too long to be convenient, you can clear the list and start over again. To delete the log, click on the "File" menu and then on the "Delete Log" option. Password Shield will ask you if you are sure you want to delete the log. If you click on the "Yes" button, Password Shield will ask you for the administrator password. Once you have input this password, Password Shield will clear the log and return you to the main Password Shield window.
Changing the Administrator password
You may occasionally want to change the Administrator password if you think it has been compromised. To change the administrator password, click on the "Security" menu and then on the "Change Administrator password" option. Password Shield will first ask you for the current Administrator password. It will then allow you to input a new one.
Resizing Password Shield
You can change the size of the Password Shield main screen by moving the mouse cursor to the side or top or bottom edge of the window. When it is on the edge, the mouse cursor will turn into a two-headed arrow. You can then press the left mouse button and move that edge of the Password Shield window to resize it.
Uninstalling Password Shield
If, after trying Password Shield, you decide that you do not want to keep it, exit Password Shield by clicking on Files/Exit if it is currently running. Then open the Windows Control Panel and select Add/Remove Programs or Programs and Features (depending on which Windows operating system you have). Select Password Shield and follow the standard uninstall procedure for your computer. This will totally remove Password Shield from your computer.
Bug reports and suggestions
Reports of problems or suggestions for improvement are welcome. Send such reports or suggestions to:
David Leithauser
Leithauser Research
821 SnapDragon Drive
New Smyrna Beach, FL 32168
You also can send Internet EMAIL to [email protected]. In cases of emergency, you can call Leithauser Research at (386) 410-6769 between the hours of 10 AM and 10 PM ET.
If I feel that the improvement would be of interest to most users, I will make it for free and send you the improved version. If the improvement is unusual and suited only to your specific needs, I can give you a price quote for a customized version of Password Shield (see below).
Go to Leithauser Research home page
Go to Password Shield download page