Work from home has gained a lot of popularity ever since the global pandemic hit our world. We spend hours after hours on our computers communicating and sending documents and information that are only permitted for the company personnel’s eyes. Therefore it is important we safeguard such delicate data in the right way by means of a VPN server for safe transfer of data and a password manager lest we don’t want our systems to be hacked. In this article, I will list 5 password managers you could use to protect yourselves against hackers and other cyber threats.
A password manager helps you to produce stronger passwords( in contrast with the “ 123456” or the “password” that we often set as password for ease of remembrance) which makes your online existence less vulnerable to password-based attacks. You might be wondering if your default browser serves that purpose. However that is not that case since web browsers have other priorities that haven’t left much time for improving their password manager. For instance, most of them won’t generate strong passwords for you which a dedicated password manager will as they have a singular goal of setting strong passwords.
1Password
1Password has apps that work just about everywhere, including macOS, iOS, Android, Windows, and ChromeOS. 1Password helps to generate strong, secure passwords which are then stored in a vault with a master password. The vault is synchronized between the devices that you use. The app includes a family plan subscription where each family member has a private vault and the entire family has a shared vault to store passwords of things like Netflix.
Another feature that this app has is the travel mode which may be useful for people who frequently travel internationally. It has a “safe for travel option” for files which when selected removes the files while travelling and upon returning reinstalls those files. This is a great way to protect certain files from international officials as sometimes you may be asked to unlock your device.The Watchtower feature identifies whether you have set any weak passwords, duplicated passwords, visited unsecure websites or enabled two factor authentication on log-ins that allow it. You can also store credit card information, secure notes or identification such as passports.
1Password is a great app to keep your cyber presence secured and it comes with a price of $3 per month and $5 per month for the family plan.
Bitwarden
Bitwarden is a free, open source password manager app. It is open source which means the code is open for public scrutiny. This will help seek out flaws in the code which will help to strengthen the security aspects of the app .Bitwarden has also been audited for 2020 by a third party to ensure it’s secure. It can be installed on your own server for easy self-hosting if you prefer to run your own cloud.There are apps for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux, as well as extensions for all major web browsers, plus less common options like Opera, Brave, and Vivaldi (which all support Chrome extensions). Bitwarden also has support for Windows Hello and Touch ID on its desktop apps for Windows and macOS, giving you the added security of those biometric systems. If you visit a site you have saved credentials for, the Bitwarden icon will pop up and if you click on it, it will show the list of accounts that have their credentials saved in this website and then automatically fills up the credentials. Bitwarden uses military grade AES-256 bit cipher to store all the passwords and it is impossible to reverse engineer any password you store. The premium plan coming in at $10 per year comes with 1 GB of encrypted file storage, two-factor authentication with devices like YubiKey, FIDO U2F, Duo, and a password hygiene and vault health report. Paying also gets you priority customer support. The family plan comes at $40/year
Dashlane
Dashlane is similar to the two password managers mentioned below except it comes with a few new features.Dashlane actively monitors the darker corners of the web, looking for leaked or stolen personal data, and then alerts you if your information has been compromised. There is a security dashboard that monitors the overall health of the passwords that you use. It suggests whether any password needs to be changed for strengthening. Dashlane also provides a million dollars in Identity theft protection which is believed to increase confidence of users in Dashlane. Dashlane also allows you to not store your passwords on Dashlane’s servers if you wish to. If you do use this feature, you are responsible for managing and syncing your password vaults within devices. Dashlane also comes with a VPN if you purchase the premium plan which costs $6.49 per month.
NordPass
Nordpass is the latest project of the company that made NordVPN, a well known VPN service provider and the company brings to its password manager much of the ease of use and simplicity that made its VPN offering popular. Just like the other managers, NordPass is available on almost all platforms including Windows, macOS etc. After installation, NordPass will give you the option to import passwords from any other password manager that you might have in your computer or phone, including your browsers. NordPass also comes with multi-device sync which means you can access your passwords on any of your devices.NordPass uses a zero-knowledge setup in which all data is encrypted on your device before it’s uploaded to the company’s servers. Other nice features include support for two-factor authentication to sign in to your account and a built-in password generator which has plenty of options to handle those poorly designed sites that put weird requirements on your password. NordPass also contains a personal information storage feature where you can store phone numbers, addresses and other personal data safe and secure. NordPass has a free version however to benefit the most from it, it is recommended to get the $36/year subscription.
LastPass
LastPass is the last password manager on our list and provides a similar service like the other managers mentioned above. LastPass has a two factor authentication which is added as additional verification on top of the master password.LastPass also contains a password generator which helps to generate strong and secure passwords with numbers, symbols and lower and capital case letters. You can sync LastPass with your devices so that you can access your passwords from different devices while being both offline and online. LastPass also allows importing and exporting passwords to the vault. LastPass offers browser extensions for the most popular browsers such as Google, Firefox, Opera etc. LastPass is also available on Android and iOS devices and they retain the same features as those in the PC/ Mac versions. You can use the autofill feature to automatically fill up website forms. LastPass comes with a free version and the premium versions will cost you $3 a month
