Having good online security habits is no longer just a good idea, it’s an essential part of being online. In what I consider to be an extremely generous offer, the popular password management service LastPass has just added multi-device password syncing to their free service tier.
For those unfamiliar with LastPass, or password managers in general, the service will help you identify all of your online accounts, secure them with long, strong random passwords and then sync those passwords between all of your devices, across multiple platforms. I am a LastPass premium subscriber, and I know I feel safer using it. Many others at Ausdroid use LastPass as well, and we know it’s good.
Why is this important? I recommend you read our primer on online security, however, if that’s a bit too involved, here’s the very brief summary. By using unique, long and strong passwords on every site your are at decreased risk of data loss if a service is breached, and your single password leaking out and all of your online accounts becoming vulnerable.
Without multi-device support, a password manager can actually be an annoyance; the system is only powerful when you can securely access it anywhere, wherever you happen to be. By adding this into the free/ ad-supported tier, LastPass has just made online security accessible to all.
I’m sure LastPass’ intention here isn’t as benevolent as I am taking it, I’m sure this is a plan to either increase ad revenue or upsell new customers, but I don’t care. Now that world class multi-factor secured password management is available to everyone, I can commence upgrading all of the cheapskates (many people pay more for coffee in one day than LastPass costs for one year) in my life to a more secure future.
If you don’t already have a password manager, set aside a few hours download the apps to all of your devices and become secure, NOW, please.
Lastpass’ database must be a very tempting target!
I use LastPass and love it. But do you think I can convince my wife to give it a try? Absolutely not. So her passwords are rubbish from a security point of view but she just doesn’t seem to care. Grrrr.
Had a similar issue with my wife, I just installed it in her browser, migrated all her passwords so she had to. Still struggling with getting her to generate random passwords for each service she uses… but, baby steps 😉
I hear you, believe me I hear you.