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1Password's corporate tool can enforce two-factor use company-wide
1Password can do more than just create and store passwords for business customers with more elaborate security needs than ordinary users. Now, it's adding and expanding its set of tools for enterprise subscribers with a new suite called 1Password Advanced Protection. The new tools include a security control option to enforce company-wide two-factor authentication, allowing employees to choose between physical security keys like Yubikey and authenticator apps like Duo.
Eero's expanded router subscriptions focus on security (updated)
Amazon-owned Eero is introducing two new subscription plans in the US to complement its popular mesh WiFi routers. The first, Eero Secure, replaces the company's previous Eero Plus add-on. It features added parental controls and promises to protect you while browsing with a warning when you're about to navigate to a website that is known for phishing or installing malware. Eero Secure costs $2.99 per month or $29.99 annually.
You need a password manager -- right now
Who loves dealing with passwords? No one. Password managers help by saving all your passwords in one, secure place. Let's break down how they work and the best password manager apps available now.
1Password no longer automatically submits passwords on Macs
Updates to 1Password mean that while you can run the application in dark mode to match your MacOS Mojave's nighttime setting the password manager will no longer automatically submit previously filled passwords. In 1Password 7.2, you will have to press the enter key to submit your passwords in Safari, which is an improvement to the tool's security.
Firefox Monitor will tell you when your passwords are compromised
After a few months of testing, Mozilla has launched its free Firefox Monitor service that notifies users when their credentials are stolen as part of a data breach. The website, which is essentially an external interface to Troy Hunt's Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) database, also allows users to sign up for notifications in case their email addresses are found in future breaches.
Firefox and 1Password now bring data breach notifications to you
Firefox and 1Password have made it much easier to find out if your email address and password have ever been been leaked due to a data breach. 1Password now comes integrated with the Have I Been Pwned service, allowing you to check your credentials against the database within its interface, while Firefox is testing a similar feature. The "pwned" website first worked with Mozilla months ago for a breach alerts feature that highlights if a website you're visiting suffered a data breach in the past. This time, they've expanded their partnership and have started testing a tool called Firefox Monitor that you can use to search the pwned database right within the browser. It even gives you a way to sign up for email alerts if your account gets compromised.
1Password rolls out its biggest Mac update in years
AgileBits has finally released 1Password 7 for Mac, and it's the password manager's first major upgrade for the platform in years. The developer has made sure it's worth the download (and your money) by packing in lots of new features, starting with a redesign of the 1Password mini. It can now suggest the log-in items you're most likely to use while in your browser or within apps. If you want to access your vaults, you now simply have to click "All Vaults" on the redesigned sidebar to bring up an interface (see image above) where you can drag and drop log-ins to organize them or to create new vaults.
1Password now lets you see if your password has been leaked
If you have a 1Password membership, you can now check to see if your passwords have been compromised by data breaches and leaked on the internet. It's just a proof of concept feature for now, but 1Password says that in future releases, it will be added to Watchtower within 1Password apps. The feature is an integration of Troy Hunt's Pwned Passwords service that includes over 500 million leaked passwords.
1Password extension is finally available for Microsoft Edge
You don't have to make do with LastPass on Edge anymore if you like 1Password better. The password manager's Edge extension is finally available on Windows 10 a year after a preview came out for Insiders. Based on its developers' posts on their forum, Redmond approved the extension on October 3rd and it popped up on the Microsoft Store a short while later.
LastPass Premium now costs twice as much
LastPass announced a restructuring of its plan pricing and packaging today and the cost of its premium tier is doubling to $24 per year. Some features are also being taken away from the free plan. Those include unlimited sharing and emergency access, both of which are now only available to LastPass Premium and Families subscribers.
The best password managers
By Joe Kissell This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer's guide to the best technology. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here. If you're not using a password manager, start now. As we wrote in Password Managers Are for Everyone—Including You, a password manager makes you less vulnerable online by generating strong random passwords, syncing them securely across your browsers and devices so they're easily accessible everywhere, and filling them in automatically when needed. After 15 hours of research and testing, we believe that LastPass is the best password manager for most people. It has all the essential features plus some handy extras, it works with virtually any browser on any device, and most of its features are free.
1Password update for iOS intros native Apple Watch app
1Password has released a massive update for iOS that makes it easy to sign up for a new account and to sync across devices regardless of their operating systems. For Apple Watch owners, though, it offers something bigger: a native app that's much faster than the old one. You can import passwords from any vault into the smartwatch to be able to easily access apps and services on the wearable. Even better, you can import them en masse by pulling down on your item list to activate the "Select Items" screen.
1Password now offers an individual subscription service
If you need a little help organizing and keeping your passwords safe, you might consider using 1Password, which has introduced a new individual subscription service. What's more, if you go ahead and sign up now, you get your first six months for free.
1Password's family plan manages log-ins for up to five people
Music streaming services aren't the only apps where a family plan can come in handy. 1Password, the popular log-in vault software, is offering a new family tier of its own. For $5 a month, up to five people can get individual accounts and password vaults under one subscription. Don't worry, if you have more than five folks in your household, you can add them for an additional $1 per month. If you're familiar with 1Password, you know that there's an individual option that allows you to buy the app for $50 -- which is actually cheaper than this new monthly plan.
1Password for Android gets a redesign and fingerprint unlock
1Password has pushed out an update for Android devices at last, and it brings huge changes to the app. The password manager will look like a brand new application the moment you upgrade to version 6, thanks to its Material Design makeover. Every section looks cleaner and more spacious. Plus, there are now toolbars everywhere, along with language's familiar floating button that gives you a way to quickly add new URL-password combinations.
1Password switches data formats for stronger security
1Password has decided to switch its default file format as a response to a post by Microsoft software engineer Dale Myers, explaining its current one's vulnerabilities. Myers has examined his 1PasswordAnywhere's .agilekeychain file recently and found that its metadata isn't encrypted. That means the sites you use with the password aggregator and even their precise login locations are stored in plain text. 1PasswordAnywhere is the program's feature that gives you a way to access your saved passwords without having to install the software itself.
How do you convince friends and family to use password managers?
Some days it seems like hackers are leaking passwords out from every corner of the internet. Password security is something that a lot of us need to take more seriously and there are a number of tools aim to make it much easier. Hopefully, you're using something to generate unique passwords for the services you use. How do you convince your closest friends and family to do the same? Head over to the Engadget forums and share your stories.
1Password updates for iOS with new login creator and "fun" password management
Agilebits has released a new update for 1Password on iOS and Mac which aims to make managing your passwords even easier and, the developers hope, possibly even fun. The update introduces 1Password's first Login Creator, which streamlines the process of adding all of your various accounts to the app with the added bonus of more secure passwords for you. In its announcement blog post, Agilebits calls it "fun", and if you derive joy from randomly generated secure passwords it should be a great time. Sync has now been updated so when you change the Master Password on your Mac, it changes automatically for your iOS devices as well. Pro feature users also get a new two-factor authentication setup for sites like Amazon or Tumblr that require a secondary random password. In addition Pro users can now delete attachments from the item editor and gain new custom field types like addresses, dates, and month/year. Here's a gif of the new two-factor system. You can grab the new 1Password for free right now in the iTunes App Store; a Pro feature account is a $9.99 in-app purchase. The Mac version of 1Password can be purchased for $49.99
How to easily add secure FileVault passcode to your Keychain
Since I have a terrible habit of losing things, I decided to encrypt my Verbatim "Tuff-N-Tiny" USB drive. This was a simple matter of control-clicking the drive name in Finder, choosing "Encrypt" and then setting an encryption password. I also decided to use 1Password to generate a nice, secure, long, random password: I copied that password from 1Password and pasted it into the password field in Finder, and made a note in the "hint" field that it is stored in 1Password: I clicked "Encrypt Disk" and Boom! done. I considered myself quite clever for being such a good practitioner of security practices... ...until I plugged the USB drive into another computer. As expected, the password prompt appeared. I switched over to 1Password, copied the password to the clipboard, and tried to paste it in to the prompt. OS X would not allow me to paste into the password field. I thought I would solve the problem by using Keyboard Maestro and have it simulate typing into the Secure Input password field, which is how I usually get around the "Can't Paste Here" problem. For some reason, it did not work, despite repeated attempts. Suddenly I felt extremely stupid for making such a long, random, hard-to-type password. I was definitely not looking forward to re-typing it on each Mac that I might want to use with the drive. A less... peculiar ... person would have just changed the password to something simpler. But I wanted to know if there was a way to use the secure, long, random password without having to type it all in manually. The drive can be mounted easily (and without requiring me to enter the password) on the Mac where it was first configured because the information is immediately stored in the Keychain. That gave me the hint I needed to figure out how to configure it on my other Macs. I went to the Keychain Access.app in /Applications/Utilities/ and searched for "Transport" (the name I had given the USB drive) and found this: Aha! Now that I knew the correct information to put in the Keychain, I went to my second Mac (but did not put the USB drive in yet), launched Keychain Access.app and chose File » New Password Item... from the menu. Put the name of the drive into the first two fields, and then put the password into the password field. Click Add. Then find the new entry in Keychain Access, and double-click on it. Change the "Kind" to "encrypted volume password" and copy the drive UUID to the "Where" field. Click Save Changes and quit Keychain Access.app. Pro Tip: If you forgot to copy the volume UUID from the first computer, you can get it from the System Information.app under Hardware » USB and then select the drive. You will see the UUID in the information window. Now you can plug in the USB drive, and when you do, you will see this prompt to allow access to the entry you created in keychain: Be sure to click "Always Allow" unless you want to be prompted every time. Whew! It might seem like a lot of steps, but it's pretty easy, and much easier than trying to type 8vphs/tEUX7FH'w9Td>tO]Qoq7ob6]W0+!BN_9J2o.Uh}jGz98 without making a mistake. Update 2014-10-07: I discovered two additional tidbits today which might come in handy for anyone else who comes across this page later on: If you are using this on OS X 10.7 (Lion), then you need to use "Encrypted Volume Password" instead of "encrypted volume password" The reason that my Keyboard Maestro "insert plain text by typing" macro did not work was because I use Option/Alt+V and if you keep the Option/Alt key held down, it changes the characters which are typed. When doing this via ScreenSharing (which is how I was doing it), it seems impossible to release the Option/Alt key fast enough to avoid corrupting the typed password. However, this can be easily worked-around within Keyboard Maestro itself: I simply added an option to my Keyboard Maestro macro to insert as plain text by typing when I select a Status Bar (aka menu bar) item, and when I use that instead of Option+V it works! Which, of course, means that you do not need to go through the much more complicated process of manually adding this to the Keychain Access.app. Live and learn.
1Password 5 now available for your downloading pleasure
So many people use AgileBits' 1Password app to keep track of the hundreds -- nay, thousands -- of passwords in their lives that this is worthy of a separate announcement. 1Password 5 has just dropped in the App Store, and you can pick up your copy for free now. We've discussed the upgrade here previously, but in case you missed those posts, here's the skinny on 1Password 5 from AgileBits: v5 for iOS and all Pro features are a free upgrade to all existing v4 owners New customers can unlock All v5 Pro features with a one-time in-app purchase We have App Extensions for Safari and third-party apps, Touch ID, Adaptive UI, and so much more 1Password 5 for iOS is now iOS 8-only iCloud sync requires iCloud Drive and will only work with iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 Yosemite. If users sync with Mac via iCloud, they might want to disable automatic app updates until both iOS 8 and Yosemite are available. Here's some extra info on this from AgileBits.
