Most people visit the same websites and use the same passwords every day. The average employee is now required to keep track of an average of 191 passwords to manage their online life. Managing this many passwords can be challenging without a password manager.
To make so many passwords easier, employees tend to use easy-to-remember passwords and use the same ones across multiple sites. The reuse of passwords is a significant factor contributing to the vulnerability of networks and the recent escalation of cybercrime. According to a new Verizon Data Breach Report, “80% of data breaches are the result of poor or reused passwords.”
We’ve all heard of significant cybersecurity breaches at consumer sites like T-Mobile, Facebook, or Marriot.
When passwords are breached on one of these sites, malicious individuals have an email address, username, and password combination they can try on other websites. If you use the same login information everywhere, a breach at one website gives these criminals access to all your accounts.
How can you help employees create and use unique, strong passwords? CIT recommends introducing them to a password manager. The password manager we like best is LastPass. Password managers save the login information of every website you use and assist you in logging into them. They protect your password database using the master password, which becomes the only password an employee needs to remember.
To prevent the cascading impact of a cyber breach, you need to create unique passwords on every website. These should also be strong passwords — long, unpredictable passwords that contain numbers, upper- and lower-case letters, and symbols. Remembering such strong passwords is nearly impossible without a password manager that generates secure, random passwords and remembers them for you.
How A Password Manager Works
Web-based password managers with supporting browser plugins and mobile apps are the most popular. The passwords are maintained in the cloud and available whenever you are online. When you go to a new website, they help create strong passwords. When you log in to a site, they store the site URL, user ID, and password. The next time you go to the site, they remember your user ID and password and automatically enter it for you, assuming you remain logged into the password manager.
Why Trust LastPass?
Security is the main goal at LastPass. LastPass created its password management system to guard the information you store, so you can trust it with your private information.
- SOC 2 Compliance: LastPass undergoes a thorough examination of its controls and processes and has attained SOC 2 compliance, the “gold standard” for security and reliability.
- Standard Audits & Pen Testing: LastPass employs reputable third-party security firms to carry out routine checks and tests of the LastPass infrastructure and service.
- Secure Data Encryption: LastPass protects sensitive data on the device level using AES-256 before synchronizing with TLS to shield against attacks.
- Bug Bounty Program: LastPass offers a bug bounty program that rewards responsible disclosure and improvements to its services from experts in security research.
- Secure Services: LastPass operates from multiple geo-distributed facilities to handle customer traffic and ensure redundancy.
- Transparent Incident Response: The LastPass team responds quickly to bugs or security hole reports and openly shares this information with our users.
LastPass is designed to keep sensitive information secure using the local-only security model. Biometric data is encrypted on the device level and does not leave the user’s device to protect biometric data from server-side threats.
LastPass does not transmit or store master passwords. The premise behind LastPass is that if LastPass isn’t able to access your information and hackers can’t, neither can they. The encryption process is performed at the device level before the synchronization process to LastPass to ensure safe storage; therefore, only users can access their encrypted data.
LastPass utilizes the 256-bit AES encryption, which is widely recognized as impenetrable, and it’s the same encryption method used by the military and banks. We protect our master passwords and key encryption against massive brute-force attacks by limiting the number of guesses.
Can Password Managers Work on Multiple Devices?
Web-based password managers work on various devices and mobile apps or even extensions for browsers. Many also provide web-based apps accessible via the website of the provider.
For example, LastPass works on major browsers (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Opera). It also works on Mobile and Desktop operating systems, including Android and iOS (Mac, iPhones, and iPads). Learn more about LastPass compatibility here.
How To Get Started?
Request a demonstration of LastPass Business and one of our team members will assist in assessing your needs and getting you the information you require.
