LastPass Password Manager Overview and Tutorial

Today I will be giving a quick overview of the LastPass password manager platform, how it works, what it all supports and how to install and configure LastPass. LastPass is a very popular password manager that runs on almost any platform imaginable. How password managers work is they store and encrypt all your account login credentials across all your platforms. Once all this information is compiled it is then encrypted and your encryption key is your “Master Password”. This allows not only the security of having all your login information encrypted but also the convenience of only needing to remember one password to unlock every account you have. LastPass is my preferred password manager because it’s free tier is a fully featured secure manager and it is supported by so vary many browsers, computer operating systems and mobile platforms. Making LastPass a complete solution. Below is a list of all the different supported LastPass offerings.

Windows

Officially Supported

·       LastPass Universal Windows Installer

Installs Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera plugins in one package

·       Internet Explorer

·       Mozilla Firefox

·       Google Chrome

·       Apple Safari

·       Opera

·       Maxthon

Compatible but not supported

·       SeaMonkey

·       Pale Moon

·       Epic

Confused by “Compatible but not supported”? LastPass’ website states “As a courtesy to the overall open source community we attempt to keep these browsers running, however we do not officially support it. As we do not officially support, we are not currently taking bug reports for these browsers.”

MAC

·       LastPass Universal Mac Installer

Installs Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera plugins in one package.

·       LastPass MAC App

·       Apple Safari

·       Mozilla Firefox

·       Google Chrome

·       Opera

Mobile Apps

·       LastPass for android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lastpass.lpandroid&hl=en)

·       LastPass for iOS

(https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lastpass-password-manager/id324613447?mt=8)

·       LastPass for Dolphin

·       LastPass for Windows Phone

·       LastPass for Microsoft Surface RT

Linux

·       LastPass Universal Linux Installer

Installs Firefox, Chrome and Opera plugins all in one package

·       Mozilla Firefox

·       Google Chrome

·       Opera

Also offer

·       LastPass Sesame

Provides two-factor authentication to significantly improve your security when accessing your LastPass Vault from untrusted computers.

·       LastPass for Applications

Extends LastPass from the web to the desktop and allows you to automatically fill and login to Windows desktop GUI applications

Step by step guide to installation and configure LastPass

1.       Go to https://lastpass.com/misc_download2.php download which ever plugins that you will use, I selected to install the LastPass Universal Windows Installer because I personally use several web browsers and it just more convenient this way.

 I also installed the android app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lastpass.lpandroid&hl=en) because that is my mobile platform.

2.       Once installed open LastPass and you will be prompted to “Create an Account now”, click the prompt and it will bring you to a page where you will enter your email address and create your master password. The master password is very important this is the one password you will have to remember to access all your other securely encrypted passwords, so choose carefully and be sure to memorize it. Once entered don’t forget to tick the terms and policy box and click on “Continue”

You will be prompted one last time to reenter your master password to ensure that you remember it.

3.       Now it’s time to save your passwords in the LastPass vault. Simply surf the internet as you normally would, hitting all the accounts you use. Each time you enter credentials to log into a site you will be prompted by LastPass

Simply select “Add” for each account you visit to populate your LastPass vault

4.       Now that you have all your various passwords saved to your vault it is time to make them more secure. first in your browser click the LastPass icon. Next select My Vault, once in your vault click the Security Challenge tab. Then click on Show My Score. Enter your master password when prompted. Wait for LastPass to analyze all your passwords.

Once it is finished decrypting and analyzing all your passwords hopefully you will get this popup

Select “Show My Score”. You will be shown a dashboard with all your security scores, if you are scored low do not fret, this is the very reason this feature exists. My score was lower than I had imagined.

If you scroll further down this page you will see steps to help boost your score and standing. There are four main steps:

1.       Change Compromised Passwords

2.       Change Weak Passwords

3.       Change Reused Passwords

4.       Change Old Passwords

Depending on what is making your score low you will not have to necessarily do every step. As you can see below I need to work on steps two and three, but not one and four.

From here just work the steps and watch your security score climb! Congratulations you are now living a more secure life. All your various passwords are saved and encrypted. All you need to remember is one master password. Simplicity at its best.