Professional advice, and even this very newsletter, suggests using a password made up of a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters, and to use a different password for each website you register on, but how do you remember not only one, but multiple passwords and which one you used for each website?
The danger of using the same password, even if it is secure, on multiple websites is that it only takes one website to be hacked for all your accounts to be in danger, or at least a major inconvenience as you will need to change the password everywhere you have used it. One solution to this problem is to use a password manager. LastPass is an online password manager which will allow you to create and save long, hard to hack, unique passwords for each website you wish to register on, protecting them using a single password, which is the only one you need to remember to access your online information.
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To get started, go to www.lastpass.com, click the download link in the top menu and click the “View the other download options” then the Download button for the Windows version of LastPass. Once it has downloaded, go to your downloads folder and double click the file to start the installation. During the installation you will be prompted to create an account.
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Your Master Password is very important and should not be a password you have used in the past. We suggest you use a phrase, such as NewYorkIsTheEmpireState – it is easy to remember, but impossible for a computer to guess. Next LastPass will offer to import and then delete any passwords saved by your browsers. We suggest you choose the “No Thanks” option to start with.
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Now open your browser. If you are using Chrome or Internet Explorer, a message indicating a new add-on or extension has been added, giving you the option to enable it. If you use Firefox, click the file menu and select “Add-ons”. Type LastPass in the add-on search bar and click the “Install” button for the LastPass add-on.
To start using LastPass you must first log in using your master password. Click the LastPass icon in the menu bar of your browser. The icon is three dots in a row. If you use Firefox, you can import saved passwords from the Tools menu in the vault, otherwise you can simply start saving passwords to LastPass as and when you access a site.
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If you already have a login for a website, when you next log into that site, LastPass will display a bar at the top of the page prompting you to save the website to LastPass. If you are registering for a new site, when choosing a password, right click the password box, select LastPass and then “Generate Secure Password”.
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Once you have completed registration, to log in, click the LastPass icon that appears in the password box and you will be able to automatically enter the password generated for that site. Next enter your username and log into the site and LastPass will prompt you to save your login details.
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Once LastPass has stored credentials for a site, to log back into that site all you have to do is click the LastPass icon that appears in the username box, and select the username you want to use – you no longer need to remember passwords, and you have the peace of mind that your passwords are safe.
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If you have used unsafe passwords for a website, you can log into that website and locate the “Change Password” option somewhere in the account settings for that website. When selecting a new password, use LastPass to generate a secure password, and once complete, log back into the website with the new password, and select the “Replace Existing Site” when saving the credentials. Is it safe? LastPass is safer than using easy to remember passwords, or using the same one for multiple websites. Technically speaking, even if the LastPass database is hacked, which has happened, the hackers are only able to retrieve a list of gibberish since all passwords are encrypted before they are stored online – and only you have the key to unlock them – your master LastPass password.
