Lessons From Mark Zuckerberg’s Social Networking Account Breach

All of the password managers I’ve seen and used recently will support a wide range of logins on nearly any site you can reach online. Most of them work in the background, and a few will audit your passwords and tell you if you have duplicates and then will help you find a new password and make changes.

Probably, the most popular password manager is LastPass, which is available in free, paid and enterprise versions, and supports virtually any computer or mobile device. Unlike some competing products, it works on Windows and Mac computers but also runs on Linux and Unix machines and supports a wide range of mobile devices running iOS, Android, Windows and others.

Password manager

For those who want a familiar name in security, Norton offers its Identity Safe password manager, which is free for individuals and runs on Windows computers and on Android and iOS mobile devices. Symantec (which owns Norton) makes its VIP Access Manager for enterprises, which is designed to work with a variety of directory management services, including Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and Active Directory.

LastPass and the Symantec products are cloud-based software that store passwords in a secure cloud environment. Or at least it’s supposed to be secure, although LastPass had a breach of its password hint file for its master logon a couple of years ago.

There are password managers that exist on only one device, which may be more secure, but are much less useful now that nearly everyone has multiple devices that they use for most online activities.

LastPass has one benefit in that it also stores its password vault on the device itself, so you can still log in to sites you need, even if the LastPass cloud storage isn’t available or if you don’t have an Internet connection. The Norton software requires an Internet connection, and the Symantec enterprise software can keep its data in your internal cloud.

At this point, I can’t tell you which of the many similar password managers are the best, and this is certainly not a comprehensive list. But if you’re overwhelmed by the daunting task of keeping up with your password, this are a good place to start. And you should start, because not doing so is a quick road to insanity, or at least an embarrassing breach.

Originally published on eWeek