Patent ID: 8332650

Claim:
A method performed by a computer system for resetting a user password on the computer system, comprising: receiving a user-specified password that allows a user access to the computer system; encrypting the user-specified password with a public key to generate an encrypted password; storing the encrypted password and the public key in a memory accessible to the computer system; storing a private key that corresponds to the public key on a removable computer-readable medium, wherein neither the user-specified password nor the encrypted password is stored on the removable computer-readable medium, and wherein the private key, in and of itself, does not provide user access to the computer system; receiving an indication that the user has forgotten the user-specified password; in response to receiving the indication that the user has forgotten the user-specified password: detecting that the removable computer-readable medium is communicatively connected to the computer system; the computer system retrieving the private key from the removable computer-readable medium; locating in the memory accessible to the computer system, the encrypted password that was encrypted with the public key that corresponds to the private key; decrypting the encrypted password with the private key; and allowing the user-specified password to be reset if decryption is successful.