A system for automating the recovery of a credential store, in which client software generates a temporary key pair based on a new password, and sends client information including the user's name, the public half of the temporary key pair, and the host name of the client computer system to a server system, from which the client information is passed to a recovery process. The client software process displays a prompt indicating that the user should call a help desk. A help desk administrator verifies the user's identity and approves the user's request by causing an approval message to be sent to the recovery process. The recovery process obtains recovery information consisting of either the decryption key(s) for the credential store, or a decrypted copy of the credential store, and encrypts the recovery information using the temporary public key. The client process downloads the recovery information from the server, and decrypts it using private key of the temporary key pair. The credential store can then be decrypted using the recovery information if necessary, then re-encrypted based on the new password. The encrypted recovery information is stored on the server and re-used for a certain period of time, after which it is deleted, thus allowing multiple copies of the credential store to be conveniently recovered.