Get started with a password manager

It’s not as complicated as it sounds — here’s how to quickly get up and running.

Password managers are pretty simple to set up and though you could dedicate the time to enter in all your passwords straight off the bat, for most, it’s easier to just jump through the hoops when the time comes to log in to different services. This will make the initial setup a reasonably speedy exercise, but you will need to create a master password and it’s worth setting up a form fill template and entering in you’re credit card details — it’ll securely save and fill these details wherever you go on the web at the click of a button.

Master password

A master password is the key to your kingdom and, though it might seem like one, single overarching password that unlocks all your others is a security disaster waiting to happen, if it’s a well-formed encrypted password manager login, then it is the most secure way to do it. The key to a wellformed password is part maths, part randomness and should include more than 8 capitalised and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols and ideally should be created by chance. The use of various character sets increases the variables exponentially, 8 is simply the mathematical sweet spot that has 7.2 Quadrillion possible combinations and takes an acceptable period of time (for today’s supercomputers around 82 days) compute the required possibilities to crack it, though as computers become more powerful, this continually reduces.

Apps and extensions

Though there is a bit of setup initially with password managers, if you set them up properly, then they should save you time. The way they do this is through smartphone apps and browser extensions that allow you to have access to your password vault wherever it is you generally use them. 1Password is the most limited in terms of ubiquity but it is still available on Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Opera browsers and Android or iOS apps. Considering you can grant them permissions to autofill in smartphone apps or on any web page, both are worth setting up.

Two-factor authentication

Dashlane has a two-factor authentication system of its own that comes preconfigured to use the email account it was set up with, but you can connect it to a range of third-party two-factor authentication apps instead. Lastpass has it’s own authenticator app, but offers less in the way of third-party compatibility. Interestingly, 1Password doesn’t offer two-factor authentication, but the company argues that the locally stored files mean largely cancel out the need for multi-factor authentication.

“The key to a well-formed password is part maths, part randomness and should include more than 8 capitalised and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols and ideally should be created by chance.”