{"id":909,"date":"2023-09-15T02:31:16","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T06:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/uit\/infosecdev\/?page_id=909"},"modified":"2025-05-23T15:21:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T19:21:06","slug":"password-manager-guide","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/uit\/infosec\/password-manager-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Password Manager Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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WHAT IS A PASSWORD MANAGER?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

A password manager is software that helps you securely store and manage passwords, making it easy to protect all your different accounts with separate and strong passwords. You only need to remember the one master password that unlocks the password manager itself. The tool also helps you create strong and secure passwords, and remembers them for you automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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BENEFITS OF USING A PASSWORD MANAGER<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

To keep all your work and personal computing accounts secure, you should\u00a0always use separate, strong password for every different service\/account you use<\/strong>. This helps limit impact of all your accounts if one of the services you use be breached, or your password stolen. The password manager not only helps remember all your passwords for you, it also helps you easily and automatically generate strong passwords to use. Good password managers also securely store all your password in a \u201cpassword vault\u201d \u2013 an encrypted database that cannot be accessed by anyone without your master password, even if your computer is stolen. Even better, most will work with 2-factor authentication for extra security. Password managers can also be used by groups or teams that need to securely share passwords for common accounts. No more writing down passwords!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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RISKS TO CONSIDER WHEN USING A PASSWORD MANAGER<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Special care should be taken to secure the password manager, as it will hold all your passwords. The \u201cmaster\u201d password that grants access to the tool should be very strong and unique, and 2-factor\/multi-factor authentication should be used if possible. Some password managers use secure cloud-based storage of the password manager database, and others only store that data on your local hard drive \u2013 there are pros\/cons to each approach, but for most people cloud-based services are generally much easier to use, particularly across multiple devices, and you do not need to worry about making your own backups of your password database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OTHER CONSIDERATIONS WHEN THINKING ABOUT USING A PASSWORD MANAGER<\/h4>\n\n\n\n