Should You Use a Password Manager?
Should y'all use a password director?
Many cybersecurity experts insist that using a countersign manager is the all-time way to make sure y'all have a strong, unique password for every online account. Merely others are less sure about the value these tools provide.
For naysayers, password managers correspond a single indicate of failure — a treasure trove of highly sensitive information guarded past one main password that could itself exist lost, stolen or hacked.
- The best password managers to keep your online accounts condom
- LastPass, 1Password and other countersign managers can exist hacked: What to exercise
And so who's right? Tom's Guide spoke with a number of digital-security experts, picking their brains near the pros and cons of today's password-management solutions.
Here's what they have to say about these contentious tech tools, along with some tips on how to mitigate the risks associated with keeping all your passwords in i place.
Praise for password managers
Non all security experts like to use countersign managers, only those who do can't seem to imagine a globe without them. Case in point: Robert Siciliano, Boston-based security analyst and CEO of Safr.me, who said that with more than than 650 passwords in active utilise, he just couldn't part without a password manager.
"Without a password managing director, consumers revert to poor passwords with no management," Siciliano said in an email message. "They will apply the same countersign for all their critical accounts and volition inevitably get hacked."
But even Siciliano — who said that there isn't a single legitimate argument confronting using a password managing director — takes steps to mitigate the risk of having all his passwords in ane place.
He said he memorizes the login information for his well-nigh critical accounts (such every bit online banking concern accounts), but stores the rest of his passwords in a web-based password managing director.
'Nobody can remember every countersign'
Morris Tabush, who runs his ain It consultancy, the Tabush Grouping, in New York, also noted the vulnerabilities inherent in having an online identity protected simply by passwords. Just in his opinion, people demand to make the best of this imperfect reality by protecting passwords as best they can.
For Tabush, that means using a password manager.
"Having a universal username and countersign is impossible, as every site or service has its own password requirements," Tabush said via e-mail. "Nobody tin can remember every user-name-and-password combination."
Tabush said he swears by password managers for himself and for his clients, all of which are pocket-size and medium-size business owners with dozens of online accounts. His tool of pick is RoboForm by Siber Systems, a password-management app for Windows and Mac that's besides available for iOS and Android mobile devices.
Tabush likes RoboForm because it works across all his devices, including his desktop, laptop, iPhone and iPad. Because this spider web-based countersign manager stores passwords every bit encrypted files, fifty-fifty if i of Tabush's devices were to be stolen, the thief wouldn't take access to his login information.
Digital downside
Of grade, for every expert who says he can't live without a countersign manager, there'due south another who says he'd gladly go the residue of his life without always using i.
That's the case for Terry Cutler, co-founder and chief technology officer of Montreal-based cybersecurity consultancy Digital Locksmiths.
"I'chiliad non a fan of password-management tools at all," Cutler said in an email interview. "If the tool got hacked, and then all of your codes would be taken."
Tyler Reguly, managing director of security research and development at Portland, Oregon cybersecurity firm Tripwire, agreed with Cutler. He argued that password managers may do more damage than good, especially for habitation users.
"Password managers are society's method of moving bad habits to the reckoner," Reguly said. "It'southward bad form to 'write down' passwords, so instead nosotros 'store' them on our computer. 'Store' is simply the digital equivalent to 'write down.'"
'I don't trust online password managers'
Figuring out which tools are secure, and which ones aren't, isn't necessarily an like shooting fish in a barrel task. As Ken Westin, manager of security strategy at ReliaQuest, pointed out, it's difficult to know just how secure password managers really are.
"Personally, I don't trust online countersign managers," Westin said in an email message. "This isn't because I recall they're insecure; it's because I don't know how secure they are, how they store my information and if my data is properly encrypted."
Because of this doubt, Westin said he wouldn't store his about sensitive information in web-based password managers. For managing passwords to fiscal accounts and email accounts, Westin recommended using a tool that isn't connected to the internet.
"For maximum rubber, the passwords to these services [financial and email accounts] should be kept in an offline, encrypted password director application, like KeePass, that requires authentication to open up and is backed upwardly regularly and securely," Westin said.
Christopher Burgess, CEO and president of Prevendra, a Seattle-area security and privacy company, suggested that anyone who doesn't trust countersign managers could instead keep rail of passwords manually.
"A manual organization is simple to implement [with] 2 notebooks," Burgess said. "In notebook one, put your account data — name of service, URL, user ID and a serial number. In book 2, next to the serial number, write down the countersign and any authentication notes. Put book two in a safe identify, and refer to it when you can't remember your password."
Playing information technology safe
While several of the experts we spoke to had strong opinions nearly password managers, many security experts seem to fall somewhere in the eye of this contend. For them, password managers are useful tools, but far from infallible.
Every bit Chester Wisniewski, a chief research scientist with multinational antivirus firm Sophos, said in an email, individuals who don't cull their password management tools wisely could end up handing over "the one band that rules them all."
"Look for well-known, vetted applications," Wisniewski said. "They must encrypt things locally and not rely on third parties to perform the encryption. I personally am addicted of LastPass and KeePass."
Cedric Jeannot, founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm APrivacy in Waterloo, Ontario, also stressed the importance of reliable information encryption when determining which password managing director to use.
Jeannot said that if your countersign manager of pick stores data in the cloud — rather than locally on your computer — you should pay close attention to which country your information is stored in and who, in addition to the password-management service, might have access to it.
Lamar Bailey, senior managing director of security at Tripwire, said individuals should look for countersign managers that have security features beyond encryption, features that might assist secure users' online identities.
"Many password managers alert users to websites that have been breached, or those that are afflicted by serious security vulnerabilities like Heartbleed," Bailey said in an email.
Bailey went on to say that the about important thing to keep in mind regarding countersign managers is the master password that you use to secure this tool.
"Any password manager is merely secure as your master password," Bailey said. "So users should always make certain the password to their password director is very potent, and change it oftentimes."
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/password-manager-pros-cons,news-19018.html
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