We can say that passwords are a basic security measure to prevent attacks on the Internet. To remember them, to create some more complex ones, we can use a key manager. There are many available, both free and paid. Now, in this article we are going to talk about why it can be dangerous. We will give some tips to use them safely.
A password manager can be a danger
As with practically any program that you can use on your computer or mobile, you will find many options available. Some will be paid and others free. However, not all of them will be safe. In fact, many of them could be a real security threat. Especially it happens when you use versions of trial or free.
An unsecured password manager could be a way for hackers to steal passwords. They could exploit an unpatched vulnerability, for example. Even that key manager may have been created simply to scam users and collect all their data and passwords.
This can happen in password managers for desktop, mobile or browser versions, be it Chrome, Firefox or any other. There are many alternatives available on the web and it is always necessary to verify that they work correctly and do not pose a problem for security and privacy.
Think, for example, of a key manager that you find on the Internet for free. It promises to store passwords securely, but really has been created as a bait so that you place your trust there and an attacker can steal from you without you noticing when using that application.
Something similar could happen if there is an application to manage keys that takes long time no update. It may even have been abandoned by its developer. An attacker can find vulnerabilities and exploit them to steal user keys. Especially this can happen with online password managers.
Tips for using a key manager safely
So what can we do to use a key manager safely? We are going to give a series of essential tips for it. The first is certainly choose very well what program you are going to install. You must make sure that it is legitimate, that you have downloaded it from an official page and that it will not present any threat.
It is also important that always update key managers. You should see that you have the latest available version installed and in this way you are correcting possible vulnerabilities that may appear on the network. This is something that you should apply to any program, but even more so when it comes to an application that is going to store your passwords.
Also, another tip for using key managers safely is to create a master key make it totally safe. That is going to be the entry route and it is important that we use a very reliable one, that allows us to correctly protect the key manager and not have problems.
But if you want to maximize security, it is advisable to use a offline password manager. It does not mean that those that are online are all dangerous, but without a doubt it is where there will be more probability of a security problem appearing and it is a good idea to avoid them.
