diff --git a/opal/mca/sec/basic/sec_basic.c b/opal/mca/sec/basic/sec_basic.c
index de7e1721cc..b7d03deef5 100644
--- a/opal/mca/sec/basic/sec_basic.c
+++ b/opal/mca/sec/basic/sec_basic.c
@@ -69,7 +69,11 @@ static int get_my_cred(int dstorehandle,
         if (OPAL_SUCCESS == opal_dstore.fetch(dstorehandle, my_id, OPAL_DSTORE_CREDENTIAL, &vals)) {
             kv = (opal_value_t*)opal_list_remove_first(&vals);
             if (NULL == kv) {
-                my_cred.credential = strdup("12345");
+                /* make the default credential 7-bytes long so we hit a nice
+                 * 8-byte alignment (including NULL terminator) to keep valgrind
+                 * from barking in optimized builds
+                 */
+                my_cred.credential = strdup("1234567");
                 my_cred.size = strlen(my_cred.credential)+1;  // include the NULL
             } else {
                 my_cred.credential = strdup(kv->data.string);