Do you want to know my dirty little secret? One that I think is shared by millions? For years I have not very securely managed my personal passwords. You know the list — everything from login information for shopping websites and personal bank accounts, to passwords for different programs. In my defense, I do have unique, hard-to-crack passwords, and have scrupulously documented them, creating an Outlook contact for each site or system and adding the username and password in the notes section. It was somewhat secure since you needed to login to my email to access any of the information. But if I ever lost my smartphone…yikes! I had password night sweats for a while, and finally kicked myself to find a better solution.
I started using LastPass (http://lastpass.com/), and I’ve been very pleased so far. It is in many ways easier than using Outlook, and is much more secure. Below is more information about the system.
- It took me a total of about 5 hours over a couple for weeks to get all of my information into LastPass. I never realized I had well over 100 separate accounts and programs that required login information!
- LastPass works on my local PC, in the cloud, and on smartphones so I feel covered no matter where I’m working.
- The system is encrypted so it is secure on the cloud and local device side.
- It is FREE to use for the PC and cloud side. The smartphone app is only $12 per year with an upgrade to the Premium version.
- The system can securely auto log you in to websites and “automagically” fill in fields in website forms.
- The system can create secure notes as well for non-traditional login information, e.g., codes to cabinet locks, social security numbers of family members, etc.
If you are keeping your critical login and account information in an Outlook Note, Contact, Word/Excel document or something else that is not secure, take the time and effort to use a better tool. There are a lot of programs that can help. LastPass seemed to do what I needed, was rated highly by others, and was cost effective. Just do it – you will thank me later.
