LastPass

We have all been there at one time or another: forgot your password to your Gmail or our Godaddy account. We've all gone through the fun process of resetting or changing our passwords. There are dozens of passwords we have to remember for all the sites we visit. LastPass is your solution to not only have your passwords stored securely, but to have more secure passwords.

I cannot tell you how many times I have met people who struggle to remember their password or have completely forgotten it altogether. LastPass stops that problem in its tracks.

I switched over to LastPass a few months ago, and it has changed the way I store passwords online. With dozens of passwords to remember, I had previously used a structure to build passwords so that they were each unique and moderately secure. I then had to rebuild that mental structure for each password.

We each have our own way of creating and remembering passwords. Unfortunately they all have one fundamental problem: They tend to be weak passwords. The benefits of LastPass are two-fold:

1. You only have to remember ONE password: Your LastPass Password, which unlocks access to all your passwords .
2. You can generate secure passwords (ex. Make your bank password 50 characters long with random letters, upper and lower case, symbols, and numbers).

But the benefits do not stop there. Once you have saved a new username/password into LastPass, the LastPass extensions (that can be added into any browser) will detect when you go to that site and auto-fill your credentials for you.

Of course the biggest question is whether or not you are more secure by having one password that gives someone access to ALL of your passwords. That is where two-step verification comes into play, along with many other features offered by LastPass to stop hackers. 

Two-Step verification, offered by several company's including Google and Yubikey, adds an additional step to your log in process. For example, if you choose to use Googles' Two-Step verification with LastPass then, each time you log into LastPass, you will either have to enter a code that is sent via text to your phone or enter the code generated by the Google App, again only on your phone.

This second step will block most hackers in their tracks. Even if they know your LastPass password they would need your phone to get in. Beyond that you have options to ban any country from logging in (ex. You can only log in when in the USA). You can also block mobile devices from logging in except for yours if you enable Yubikey as a two-step verifier.

All of this only touches the surface of what LastPass is capable of, and did I mention you can get it for free? 

Other features of LastPass include:

• Credit Monitoring
• Sharing Passwords with others
• Create Secure Notes
• Create profiles to fill in forms (name, address, email, even credit cards)
• Security Check (lets you know how strong or weak your current passwords in LastPass are)
• Enterprise Account upgrade to use in your business and share folders with employees (giving the option to only grant them access without giving them access to actually SEE the passwords).

If you struggle with remembering your passwords, I encourage you to check out LastPass. Play with it, try it out with just a couple of your passwords until you get used to it. In the end you will see, as I have, that LastPass is one of the best and secure password managers available.

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