Let LastPass manage your passwords (you have other things to think about today).

We have too many passwords. Keeping track of them mentally or on Post-It notes does not work. Keeping them in a Microsoft Word document is also troublesome. If you change a password and fail to update the document, then the record becomes wrong. Next time you go to that website and use the password in your Microsoft Word document, it won’t work. You did not update the document. Let me introduce LastPass.

Several companies have solutions. I use LastPass, which lets you create a vault that holds all your passwords. You don’t have to remember what LastPass stores in the vault. You only have to remember the master password to access the vault. The creators therefore promote it as the LastPassword you have to remember. Cute name? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Download and install the LastPass toolbar from http://lastpass.com and create your account. The password you set becomes your master password. When you visit a website and login, LastPass asks if you want to save a record for that website. I usually say yes. You can go back and edit that record.

Here’s a quiz for you.

How are you managing passwords?
A) An online password manager.
B) Post-It notes and random papers.
C) Ha Ha Mark. You must be kidding.
Correct answer (what you should be doing): A

Free account.

You can get a free account and access your vault through http://lastpass.com and a toolbar. I upgraded my account to Premium status. $3/month helps me not have to think about passwords. My Twitter record looks like this.

What my Twitter record looks like in LastPass

After creating a few records, I started creating folders to help organize them. The Social Media folder has a name of my choosing. I also did not set the 4f4SeHRzuy!BN*h7 password. Only a computer could set one that cryptic. I was at Twitter one day and I manually reset my password. I let LastPass propose alternate passwords. I chose 4f4SeHRzuy!BN*h7, updated my Twitter password and saved the new password in LastPass.

Don’t bother trying to login to my Twitter account with that password. I changed it after proofreading the previous paragraph. Changing the password took less than 30 seconds.

LastPass lets you create a hierarchy.

In the same manner your organization has a CEO who delegates to various department managers, LastPass lets you build teams and add or remove users. The team subscription lists these benefits:
1. Instantly add and remove team members.
2. Safely share passwords with others.
3. Give each employee their own vault for safeguarding passwords.
4. Store digital records: Wi-Fi logins, software licenses, employee IDs, and more.
5. Set security controls and restrictions based on your team’s needs.

The biggest challenge is compiling all your current passwords. What you remember, what you save on Post-It notes, what you save in a web browser when it asks if you want to save the password after successfully logging in… These all go into LastPass. I have an obvious preference here. Anything is better than nothing. Choose one online password manager and go to work adding your passwords.

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Content from How Hacks Happen and how to protect yourself. Visit https://howhackshappen.com and view three chapters online for FREE today or visit https://www.amazon.com/How-Hacks-Happen-protect-yourself/dp/0983576920/. By Mark Anthony Germanos, of https://cybersafetynet.net/about-cyber-safety-net/.