Even the most confidential details of you are there on your computer or phone, and you need to protect those details. Be it your bank details, your Google account, your social media, or anything that is on your phone or computer need to be secured.
Here, passwords play a crucial role in securing your information and preserving your confidentiality.
It blocks the gateway from where cybercriminals can access your data. A strong password can be a savior for you, but a weak one can let you down in several ways. So, always assign your passwords wisely.
Passwords can procure immunity to your data, apps, or accounts, but passwords need to be protected and managed too.
Yes, you read it right. You need to manage and protect your passwords, too, to protect your information.
Don't get confused or over-burdened; there are certain reasons behind that recommendation.
Let's find out.
The sudden upswing in technology has proven to be a helping hand to the spammers. Now, they have more tools and techniques to sneak into your phone or computer and access every bit of your information.
A weak password can be a big treat for them because why not? You have solved half of their problems.
It's like putting a half-broken lock on the door. It's there, but it's not worthy. It'll provide an easy passage for those hackers to get into your data and accomplish what they want.
A strong password is mandatory for your accounts or apps to be safeguarded, but the problem is people tend to forget those passwords.
How many apps do you have on your phone? How many accounts do you have? How many passwords do you have to remember? Do you remember them all? Are they strong enough to protect your credentials?
Recalling passwords can be frustrating sometimes, and if you put something easy enough to recall, then guess what? Your data is not secured as it may seem.
There is constant confusion between choosing a strong password that provides better security or a weak password that is convenient enough to recall in a few seconds. That's why you need better management and protection for your passwords.
When you use a phone or computer that is connected to the internet in one way or the other, you are prone to various threats offered by cyber-criminals. These threats can be in different forms; some of them are-
Phishing tries to steal user's information by mimicking any other legitimate website and encouraging users to enter their personal information.
Mostly it is carried out by instant messaging, email-spoofing, and SMS. As for now, it's the most widely used strategy by spammers and hackers.
These are the trash emails that are sent in bulk to random recipients. Mostly, they are for commercialization, but they can be dangerous and can contain phishing websites, and may lead to data theft.
Uninvited messages sent by cybercriminals that can have spam links or malware.
These are fake websites made for stealing data or money.
Malware that has been sent to your computer or phone can gather all your private information and deliver it to the hacker. Private information that malware can reveal to the hackers are as following-
- Passwords and usernames.
- Your money and card information.
- Your social media information, and many more.
They can then use that information for their profit like they can steal your money and can open credit cards or accounts using your private information, abuse your social media, or sell it to other parties for illegal objectives.
All those activities that can turn your life upside down can happen if a threat has been introduced into your computer or phone. So, why not be on the safer side.
We are exposed to so many threats, but there are ways to avoid them and protect your information. Let's take a look at them.
1. Never select a weak password.
You should always choose a longer password, having a combination of alphabets, both upper case letters, and lowercase letters, numerical, symbols, spaces.
Never put common or simple things as your password like a combination of your name and your date of birth, a famous idiom, 1234 as numerals, qwerty, etc.
If you think that you are the first one to use them, then you might be wrong. These are easy guesses, and anyone can crack such passwords in a few minutes. So, you need to be a bit smarter.
2. Do not put the same password or similar password to different accounts
Putting the same password or a password with one or two different characters can prove to be a risk for you.
Using similar passwords is convenient enough to recall, but it's not at all advisable.
Consider one of your accounts being hacked; now, the hacker can easily presume other passwords and access different accounts if you have put a similar password to every account. It's better to avoid such mistakes.
3. Enable the multi-factor authentication
Allow the two-factor or multi-factor authentication offered by Google, bank accounts, and many others. It provides your data with an extra layer of protection.
Let's suppose someone tries to access your account, and they guessed your password or tricked you somehow but then too, you will have control over your hand.
You will get a message on your registered phone number or email on your email address to allow or deny the login. That's how multi-factor authentication helps your data to be safe and secure.
4. Use your biometric
All the latest smartphones, laptops, and tablets have this feature that allows you to log in through your fingerprints, your face, or voice.
If you have that option, then use it. It's safer to put them as your fingerprints, face, or voice are unique, and they cannot be copied in any case, and the plus point is that you do not have to worry about memorizing all those passwords.
You can just use your biometrics to login within less than a second.
5. Start using a password manager
A password manager like Lastpass can supervise all your passwords and username. You don't have to worry about recalling passwords and putting them. Your password manager will directly do it for you within no time.
Not only that, it can effectively protect your passwords from various threats and spam. It coordinates all your passwords to your various devices. So, it will spare you from any inconvenience.
With LastPass, you can keep your passwords at your fingertips and security in your hands. It manages your passwords in an incredibly systematic way.
Lastpass can make your life simple and stress-free, with no trouble of forming a strong password and recalling it right.
It suggests you some strong and random passwords that are impossible to guess by the hackers or spammers, not only that it stores that selected password.
You Can retrieve it whenever you want and on whatsoever device you need. Lastpass removes all the barriers between you and complete security in your accounts.
It makes your account not only safe but convenient for you to log in.
Are you always in a rush? Do you forget your password more than often? Do you feel that your passwords are not strong enough or your accounts are not secured?
Then, take a deep breath and relax; LastPass will do it all for you. The LastPass helps in maintaining tranquillity everywhere you go. You will just have to remember the master password, and the LastPass will recollect the rest.
Let's scrutinize some of the applications of LastPass-- Logging into any of your accounts is fast and straightforward with the LastPass. It'll put your stored username and password into the login section on its own; you will just have to press the login button and be done.
- Want to buy something that has been there on your cart for a long time, but you didn't get the time to purchase it? Let's leave that to the LastPass. It will fill in all your shipping as well as payment details; you just have to press the confirm button, and yay! Your desired product is on its way. What can be simpler than this?
- You can store your digital catalogs like membership details, insurance cards, wifi-passwords, etc. It will keep all your data safe, and you can easily find them.
- With LastPass, you can share your passwords with anyone very effortlessly and safely, as sharing such things in the text is not at all safe.
- If you have LastPass, we need not worry about the data infringements as you will get a notification if your personal information is at any risk. As I said, the safety of your data will be in your hands.
In only three steps, you can get all the services of LastPass-
- Install the LastPass browser extension on your device and let it store and access your passwords. After downloading it, you'll get a button for accessing LastPass from your browser toolbar; log in there.
- Create a long and strong master password for LastPass and assign something that you are most likely to remember.
- Check out the password manager vault. This is where you can review items that you have saved into LastPass.
LastPass feature regarding password protection
Autofill is there to fill your online forms automatically with all your information that needs to be filled there.
When using password autofill, where password and username automatically get glutted, it's not only for passwords or usernames. It can fill in your address, your bank details, etc., whenever and wherever required.
To enable the autofill feature, just click on the plus symbol present in the right corner of your LastPass vault. Now, start adding items to it like your card details, your shipping address, etc.; it will be locally encrypted on your device with a key that only you know.
So, don't worry about the security. When you check out something on an online store, you can see an icon on your device, and after clicking it, the required information will get filled in, and you can complete a task within no time.
It stores all your passwords. It's like a physical case where you keep your valuables, but it stores your data digitally, most likely in the same manner. Retrieval of your passwords is straightforward from the password vault. You can easily do it whenever you need.
You have so many apps, so many accounts, and you and so many websites you visit, and each one of them has different passwords, and reminding all of them is not an easy task.
So, the password manager does that for you. It remembers your passwords and fills in when required. The first time when you log in to an account, the password manager saves the username and password of that account and refills it in the following logins.
It generates random and strong passwords for you. As weak passwords are the primary cause of data infringement, you need to have a strong password, and that's where the password generator comes into play.
The password generated by LastPass can never get leaked into the web, and cracking those passwords is an impossibility. The Password generator can work on Android, Mac, Windows, or Linux computers.
It offers a unique one-tap password verification. Multi-factor authentication protects your device from spam and malware. It provides an extra layer of insulation to your device.
It's user-friendly; you just have to do a tap, your password gets verified, and you can log in to top sites like Google, Amazon, etc. How you want to verify your password depends on you.
You can do it by getting a notification, an SMS, or a passcode. You can choose push-based notifications for the account you visit regularly and passcodes for others. It's completely free, and you can download it anywhere. So, just do it, what are you waiting for?
It will notify you if your data is at risk of breaching. You can turn on monitoring for the email account you want to monitor, you'll get an email if it is at risk, and then you can take action to safeguard your data.
Security is the prime objective of LastPass. They have a verified security model. LastPass has been specially designed to protect sensitive data. So, you can trust them with your information.
It is a gold standard for substantiating the dependability and security of LastPass.
This involves third-party security firms that can be trusted and used to conduct audits and inspections to assess LastPass services.
Essential data are encrypted with AES-256 at the device level before they sync with the TLC to preserve it from attackers.
This program is responsible for encouraging advancements in their service after required research.
LastPass can handle all customer traffic as it functions from numerous geo-distributed niches.
LastPass responds to all the big related reports on an urgent basis and communicates about them transparently.
Pros & Cons
Pros:-
- It protects your data from infringement.
- It stores and remembers all your personal information.
- It is entirely extensive safe, and secure.
- It generates random and strong passwords for you that are impossible to crack.
- It provides you with multi-factor authentication.
- It synchronizes your data on all your devices.
- It has verified security tools.
- It auto-fills your forms.
- It is entirely free if you want to use it for only one device.
Cons:-
- It is not accessible if you want to use it for multiple devices, but you have to pay only a minimal fee.
- If you want to use it only for personal use or family use, it is free, but you can only operate it into one device.
- For a business plan with multi-factor authentication, you will have to pay a minimal amount, $3/user/month.
- If you want to secure data for a team of 50 or fewer members, you can opt for a plan that will cost you $4/users/month.
- If you need password management for unlimited users, you can go for the enterprise option, costing you $6/user/month.
- For three in one package: multi-factor authentication, unlimited password management, and a single sign-on go for the identity package option, which will cost you $8/user/month.
Looking at the current scenario, I can say that your data is never entirely safe, not when it seems to be. Data theft can be a huge expense for anyone.
So, your data needs to be protected every time and everywhere.
What's the loss in investing in a rescuer like LastPass if you can avoid the great loss. Think about it. If something that can cost you so less protects everything you have, then what's the problem?
Otherwise, the decision is yours; one can only advise, but never forget to follow the above-mentioned rules for data security. All the best! May all your data be safe and secure.