We have to use various accounts on the internet in our daily lives. Using a password manager, we can keep the login details many accounts in one place and we just need to remember one password. A password vault stores your passwords securely, allowing you to save the information in the cloud or on your personal computer. This allows you to use truly random combinations in all your passwords, making them much harder for malicious users or bots to crack. Password managers also protect you from giving away private information by mistakes. In fact, there are multiple reasons why you should be using a password manager right now.
7 Benefit of using Password Manager
- You do not have to memorize all your passwords anymore. You only need to remember the master password that unlocks your password vault. And if you opt for a cloud-based password manager, you can access your password vault anywhere, from any device.
- Password Manager can auto-generate highly secure passwords for you. Password managers will typically ask you if you would like to use an auto-generated password whenever you create a new account with a website or application. These random passwords are long, alphanumeric, and essentially impossible to guess.
- Send alert to you when detecting phishing site. Here is a quick note on phishing scams. Spam emails are spoofed or faked to look like they are coming from a legitimate sender, like a friend, family member, coworker, or organization you do business with. Links contained within the email direct to similarly spoofed malicious websites designed to harvest login credentials. If you are using a browser-based password manager, it will not auto-complete the username and password fields since it does not recognize the website as the one tied to the password.
- Easily Manage Shared Accounts. For many businesses, managing who has access to which accounts can be a nightmare–especially if multiple people need access to a single account. A benefit of using password manager is that it allows you to efficiently manage and change the password, as necessary. Some apps even have features that enable one person to control the password to an account, and then provide access to other users without sharing the actual password. For example, if your company manages the social media accounts for a client, your social media manager can provide access using the password manager to those team members who will be updating the social media feeds without revealing the client’s actual password. The social media manager can then add or remove access from any individual without disrupting anyone else’s access.
- Password managers save time. Beyond just storing passwords for you, many password managers also auto-fill credentials for faster access to online accounts. In addition, some can store and auto-fill name, address, email, phone number, and credit card info. This can be a huge timesaver when shopping online.
- Many password managers sync across different operating systems. If you’re a Windows user at work and a Mac user at home, jump on your Android Monday through Friday and turn to iOS on the weekends, you’ll be able to quickly access your passwords regardless of which platform you’re on. Same for all the most popular web browsers, i.e., Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Internet Explorer, and Safari.
- Anti-Identity Theft helps to protect your identity. In a roundabout way, passwords managers help protect against identity theft, and here is why. By using a unique password for every site, you are essentially separating your data across each website and application you use. If a criminal hack one of your accounts, they will not necessarily be able to get into any of the others. It is not foolproof; it is an additional layer of security and a great benefit of using password manager that you will certainly appreciate in the event of a data breach.
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What is a Password Manager?
A password manager is a software application that is used to store and manage the passwords that a user has for various online accounts and security features. Password managers store the passwords in an encrypted format and provide secure access to all the password information with the help of a master password.
There are many types of password managers, differing in the way they encrypt the information, type of storage and the additional features provided.
Why use Password Manager
Password managers are applications that serve as the solution for maintaining many passwords and account information. They store the login information of the various accounts and automatically enter them into the forms. This helps in the prevention of hacker attacks like keystroke logging and it prevents the need to remember multiple passwords.
To provide an efficient way to manage all the passwords and to enable the use of strong and unique passwords for each online account, Password Manager is the key. The login information is encrypted and stored in either the local memory of the user’s system or in cloud storage. Portable password manager applications installed in mobile devices can also be used to manage and remember passwords anywhere and use them on shared systems.
Different password manager has their own unique features but there are always some additional features like automatic form filling and password generation that is available for all password manager. The automatic form filling feature fills in the login information for a particular URL whenever it loads, and thus reduces manual errors and protects systems from hacker attacks such as keylogging.
A benefit of using password managers is that the application can identify the right URL for a particular login ID and password pair automatically, they can protect credentials from phishing sites. The automatic password generation feature available in certain password managers helps to create strong, unique, and random passwords for each account.
Which Password Manager to use
Dashlane: This password manager is a little newer, but what they lack in name recognition they make up for with great features and slick apps for almost every platform — Windows, OS X, iPhone, iPad, and Android. They have extensions for every browser, features like a security dashboard that analyzes your passwords, and they even have an automatic password changer that can change your passwords for you without having to deal with it yourself.
One of the best features of Dashlane is that it is completely free to use on a single device. If you want to sync your passwords between devices, you will need to upgrade to premium. But you can test it out for free.
And when it comes to security, Dashlane has another advantage, because you have the choice to keep all your passwords locally on your computer, rather than in a cloud. So, you have the benefit of something like KeePass, but with a better interface. If you do choose to sync your passwords using the cloud, they are AES encrypted.
To Maximize the efficiency and cost of the business, Dashlane adopted the use of Yubikey to provide efficient and cost-effectiveness for managing employee passwords.
LastPass: This is a cloud-based password manager with extensions, mobile apps, and even desktop apps for all the browsers and operating systems you could want. It is extremely powerful and even offers a variety of two-factor authentication options so you can ensure no one else can log into your password vault. We have covered LastPass’s many security options in detail. LastPass stores your passwords on LastPass’s servers in an encrypted form – the LastPass extension or app locally decrypts and encrypts them when you log in, so LastPass could not see your passwords if they wanted to.
LastPass also supports the use of Yubikey 2FA to effectively manage password security enterprise wide.
KeePass: LastPass is not for everyone. Some people just are not comfortable with a cloud-based password manager, and that is fine. KeePass is a popular desktop application for managing your passwords, but there are also browser extensions and mobile apps for KeePass. KeePass stores your passwords on your computer so you remain in control of them — it is even open-source, so you could audit its code if you wanted to. The downside is that you are responsible for your passwords, and you will have to sync them between your devices manually. Some people use a syncing solution like Dropbox to sync the KeePass database between their devices.
It also supports YubiKey two-factor authentication, enabling users to protect their accounts easily and efficiently from takeovers.
What type of Password Manager to use?
Desktop-based. password managers store your passwords locally on your device, like your laptop, in an encrypted vault. You cannot access those passwords from any another device, and if you lose the device, then you lose all the passwords stored there. Locally installed password managers are a great option for people who just do not want their data stored on someone else’s network. Some locally installed password managers strike a balance between privacy and convenience by allowing you to create multiple password vaults across your devices and sync them when you connect to the Internet.
Cloud-based. password managers store your encrypted passwords on the service provider’s network. The service provider is directly responsible for the security of your passwords. The primary benefit of cloud-based password managers, 1Password and LastPass being good examples, is that you can access your password vault from any device if you have an Internet connection. Web-based password managers can come in different forms—most commonly as a browser extension, desktop app, or mobile app.
Single sign-on (SSO). Unlike a password manager to at stores unique passwords for every application you use, SSO allows you to use one password for every application. Think of SSO as your digital passport. When entering a foreign country, a passport tells the officials at customs and immigration that your country of citizenship vouches for you and that you should be allowed to enter with minimal hassle. Likewise, when using SSO to log into an application, you aren’t required to verify your identity. Instead, the SSO provider vouches for your identity. Businesses favor SSOs over password managers for a few reasons. Mainly, SSO is a secure and convenient way for employees to access the applications they need to get their jobs done. SSOs also reduce the amount of time IT spends troubleshooting and resetting forgotten passwords.
How to Get Started with Password Manager
The first big decision you will need to make with a password manager is choosing your master password. This master password controls access to your entire password manager database, so you should make it particularly strong – it is the only password you will need to remember, after all. You may want to write down the password and store it somewhere safe after choosing it, just in case – for example, if you’re really serious, you could store your master password in a vault at the bank. You can change this password later, but only if you remember it – if you lose your master password, you will not be able to view your saved passwords. This is essential, as it ensures no one else can view your secure password database without the master password.
After installing a password manager, you will likely want to start changing your website passwords to more secure ones. LastPass offers the LastPass Security Challenge, which identifies the weak and duplicate passwords you should focus on changing. Dashlane has a Security function built in that will help you figure out which passwords might need to be changed.
Conclusion
Although using password manager sounded like its foolproof, but no person, organization or computer can be 100% secure. There is always a chance of being hacked by a Hacker even with the best protection. By using a password Manager, it could reduce the chance of being a victim of cybercrime. To further improve your security, a Hardware Security Key will be the best choice as it prevents hacker from accessing your Password Manager because the hacker will require to use a physical key to login. So far there has been no known cases of people using YubiKey getting hacked. Which ensures that adding Yubikey to Password Manager will drastically lower the risk of getting hacked.
Usually, the Password Manager protection is enough for user to not get compromised by Hacker. But big organization or company that have a lot of sensitive accounts and password are encourage to setup a YubiKey on your Password Manager because of the potential loss are much greater than a single person. Imagine the amount of financial and data loss could happen to your organization if you allow a hacker to compromise your accounts. So, by using Password Manager with YubiKey, it will be a good replacement for reusing passwords.
To find out more additional information about YubiKey, please go to our Website at https://dtasiagroup.com.hk/yubikeys/ or if you have any enquire about Yubikey, please contact us and visit our DT Asia HK Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/dtahongkong/ to find out more.
