An apparatus and method for multi-threaded password management are
provided. With the apparatus and method, resources may be grouped into
families of resources. A family of resources is defined as a group of
resources that may make use of the same password. When a user sets a new
password for a family of resources, all of the passwords for each of the
resources in the family are reset to this new password. That is, the
multi-threaded password management apparatus and method spawns threads to
reset the passwords of the other resources in the family. In this way, a
single operation of resetting a password for a resource in the family may
cause a plurality of passwords to be reset. Moreover, the passwords need
only be reset when the earliest reset time of the resources in the family
occurs. Thus, the number of passwords that must be memorized by a user is
significantly reduced. Furthermore, the number of times that passwords
need be reset is also reduced due to the resetting of passwords on a
group level.