April 2016

A technology makes strident progress, managing online security — particularly account passwords becomes a clumsy job. Generating safer, stronger passwords is a different ball game altogether and has become somewhat of a norm. Till about a decade ago, social networks were spawning at a slower pace than today — there weren’t many, to be quite honest, and it was pretty easy managing account details (most importantly passwords). Then came the mobile revolution where startups generated ideas to revolutionize the industry, some of which metamorphosised into apps, and it became much tougher to choose stronger passwords which can be memorized. Creating an account and memorizing a password wasn’t such a tedious task but the past few years have seen a haphazard growth in the app accounts being created and it’s harder than ever to memorize anything in this information overload era. With online hacking becoming so rampantly brutal today, your accounts could be compromised within minutes. Losing your personal identity and be crestfallen for the rest of your lives is a terrible reality of our times.

Welcome password managers, and let’s stop making a fuss about password management. There are several options around, including LastPass which is a secure cloud-based password management platform. There are some features that make LastPass my preferred password management tools.

Auto-fill Password Fields
The LastPass autofill has several obvious benefits, most importantly, if the website was phishing information using another domain — remember that phished sites replicate the content and the design, not the domain name to trap unwary visitors, the autofill option does not work. That should sound an alarm bell to check the domain information. If your computer is infected with a malware that records keystrokes, having an autofill option negates any risk of information theft. The passwords are secured in an online vault and accessed through the browser extension or application.

Secure Password Vault
LastPass uses a secure online vault on the cloud to store personal data and allows access only through its extension/application installed in your browser. LastPass is generally available only when connected to the Internet but you can also access your data offline through the available extensions on desktop or mobile. Offline data can also be accessed through a stand-alone application called LastPass Pocket. If you are inclined to learn more about the technology behind how LastPass secures your data, here’s a nice article from the website to get you started.

Generate and Audit Password Security
LastPass has a nifty feature to rank your password security and it’s called the LastPass Security Challenge. It warns the user of a potential security breach if you have reused your password on multiple sites or if a website has been hacked and your credentials may have been compromised, it asks you to change your password urgently. Also, it’s a great tool to assess the overall health of your online security vis-a-vis passwords. As you comply with the suggested changes you can improve your security challenge score over a period of time. But ensure that you take this challenge periodically.

Auto-Change Passwords
LastPass can also auto change the password for any website which is listed in the security challenge. When you select this option, LastPass would launch the website, login into the account for you and change the password of the account for you. And the newly generated password is automatically saved in the vault. It’s that simple.

Secure Notes
Think of LastPass Secure Notes as a password-protected, digital notepad with access from anywhere. You can save sensitive information such as credit cards, bank account numbers, social security, other passwords, etc. It’s a great way to safely store information which you’d regularly use in your work or personal life.

And remember that a slew of 2FA features makes LastPass more secure than ever. And with its extensive support via extensions for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, and through apps for Android and iOS, it makes LastPass one of the better password management tools around. It’s good enough to get you going on online security and password management! Give it a try.

Featured Image by courtesy of Christiaan Colen / Windows login screen (Some Rights Reserved)