What is Password Manager and why MUST you have it ?

What is Password manager and why must you have it ?
What is Password manager and why must you have it ?

We all are well aware of the increasing number of security breaches and identity theft cases happening around us nowadays, in such circumstances we need to do something about our online security to protect the online privacy. One way to protect your online credentials is by using unique and strong passwords for all the accounts, apps, services, and websites you log into.

Most of us usually set weak passwords and even reuse the same password for many accounts, which greatly increases the chances of identity theft or hacking attack. To avoid this, you can use a password manager to better secure your online accounts, as well as a convenience on part of remembering multiple passwords. 



What is a Password Manager?

As the name indicates, it is an application that helps you to manage your passwords. It stores all the passwords that a user has for different online accounts so that you just have to remember a single password. The password manager saves all the passwords securely in an encrypted format and offers protected access to your password information using a single master password.

There are different types of password manager based on the method of data encryption, kind of storage, or any other feature offered. These are the software applications intended to maintain a large number of passwords as well as account information. Using a password manager you won’t have to remember a huge number of passwords.

Such software applications also facilitate the use of unique and strong passwords for all the online accounts and offer an ideal way to maintain your passwords. Password managers mostly come with some added features such as password generation or auto form filling. They keep the login information for different accounts of the user and automatically fill it into the form so that you don’t have to do it manually thus reducing human errors and avoiding attacks from cybercriminals such as keystroke logging.

Benefits of using a password manager

Convenience

The very first benefit that you will experience by using a password manager is the convenience as you don’t have to remember all of your passwords anymore. There will only be a single password – the master password that will help you gain access to your password vault. If you choose the cloud-based password manager tool, you can unlock the password vault from any device.

Highly secure and unique passwords

Password managers generate unique and strong passwords automatically for your online accounts. Generally, such tools enquire about if you want to use an auto-generated password or not when you sign up for a new account with any application or website. Such random passwords are alphanumeric, long, and impossible to figure out.

Protect your identity

Passwords managers help protect your identity online. It facilitates you against identity theft in an indirect way. When you use a unique and strong password for each account and every site, you are dividing your information across each application and website you use. In case, a cybercriminal managed to hack one of your online accounts, they won’t be able to get into another account. Password managers may not be 100% secure but it serves as an extra layer of security when it comes to identity theft or hacking.

Saves time

It will also help save your time that you can put in some other productive work. It can save time by auto-filling credentials, even auto-filling forms with name, email, address, phone number, and credit card information. It can save lots of time while online shopping, for example.

Alert for phishing sites

Spam emails are intended to trick or fool you and look as they came from an authentic sender like a family member, a friend, your business, organization, or your coworker. Such emails usually contain links to some malicious sites that are created to steal your login credentials. If you are using a password manager for your browser, it will prevent auto-filling of your login credentials as it will not recognize the site as the one tied to the password.

Are Password Managers Safe?

Let the truth be told, Password managers are not foolproof, they can be hacked. However, when it comes to protecting consumer’s information the track record of the password manager is quite good. LastPass, a password manager software application, underwent a data breach back in 2015. During the attempt, criminals got access to the user’s email but failed to steal the passwords. Many password managers use uncompromising military grade encryption to keep the passwords secure.

Password Managers to use

There is a wide variety of password managers available to use but some of the best choices include 1Password, LastPass, KeePass, Dashlane, Nordpass, Keeper security just to name a few. Each of the password managers is a great choice and which one you should choose depends on your preferences and what is more important for you.  

Secure Your Digital Life

Approximately every site you visit asks you to create an account and set a password, from secure banking websites to dating apps. So it becomes extremely hard for anyone to memorize a long password with a difficult combination of numbers, texts, and symbols, but forgetting any of your passwords is a nightmare. Rather than saving your passwords on your smartphone, computer, tablet, sticky notes, auto-fills, or in documents, get a password manager. It is a more convenient and more secure way of keeping your passwords and account credentials under lock and key and it will serve as a first defense against getting hacked.



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