Online Password Managers - why you should use them...
If you use different passwords for different authentication systems, and you come back from a fairly long vacation, I am sure you would have felt the need for password manager to manage all your passwords :)
Traditionally, you would use Password Manager on your existing system, use a Master Password to access control to your list of passwords - its not secure at all - your system might be prone to attacks from viruses, worms that might destroy your system. Even your passwords list file might be accessible to someone who is smart enough to actually work on it show up your passwords. All said, we can say, its not the safest way to manage your passwords
Recently, there is a trend which has emerged which lets you store your passwords safely by using some very interesting technologies. These password managers allow you to access your passphrase from any browser and access your password lists.
It is important to know how exactly these password managers work and the following illustration gives a fair idea of it
From the above illustration which shows only the decryption part, your data is NEVER stored on the server in a plain format which can be even manipulated or read by even the System Administrators of the server. All the server does is send in encrypted data to a ENVIRONMENT in your browser where data is either encrypted or decrypted based on whether you are saving a new password or reading an existing password.
These password managers usually use one of the strongest encryption methods - AES (Advanced Encrpytion Standard) and is very safe from man-in-the-middle attacks.
Two online password managers which use the above techniques and which you can use would be
Passlet - www.passlet.com
and
Passpack - www.passpack.com
I had tried Passlet couple of months back, and got to know about Passpack recently. First glance, Passpack definitely seems to have better user interface.
Go ahead and create your online password manager account today - both of them are Free!
