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Password application management programs

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Introduction

Password application management programs are software that assist in the generation, retrieval and storing of password for its clients. These programs can be stored on a centralized, personal or netword computer system depending on how and who utilizes them (Cox & Salahshour, 2003). Due to the emergence of cloud computing in the recent years, the password application management programs could be present on the cloud and the storage for these programs may also be provided over the cloud. There are many advantages and disadvantages of these programs. They also are present with different propriety rights. In the following discussion, I will provide an overview of these different features.

Commercial

There are different companies in the world which specialize in developing and managing password application management programs. Some of these applications are expensive and primarily used by corporations of different sizes. Others are not that expensive and may be used by individual users and small businesses. Some of the password management applications are Zoha Vault, Dashlane, Sticjy password premium, Keerer password manager, Password boss, LastPass, LogMeOne and others (Pc, 2017). There are many more of these applications present in the market. Most of them use different encryptions that decide how strong or weak they may be.

Open source/free

Open source software are software applications that are developed by different teams of programming geeks and put on the internet for free where other programmers from all over the world can contribute to them and improve them. My personal experience is that in many cases, open source programs are better than the ones that you pay a good amount of money for. Some of the open source password management application programs are: Clipperz, KeePass and Passopolis.

Features and benefits

There are many benefits of utilizing password management applications. Some of them are discussed in the bellow (Christopher, 2017).

  1. The main benefit is that you only have to remember one password as all other passwords will be saved under this password. You log in with only one user name and password to many places that has different passwords. This makes it easy to remember one password compared too many.
  2. Password managers generate random password that are very strong against the personalized passwords like birthdays etc.
  3. With the help of a password manager, it is really easy to change the password. The built in password generator can generate a password for a website that has been hacked and you stay safe.
  4. These applications can not only store passwords but also store your online shopping preferences, online profiles and much more.
  5. You can share your password with joint accounts securely with the help of a password management application.
  6. You can use the same password management application on many devices with the same credentials. For example you can use them on a mobile phone, a computer and a tablet with the same credentials.

Drawbacks

With the benefits discussed, there are also some disadvantages of password management application programs that are listed in the bellow.

  1. The main disadvantage is that the attackers and hackers have to hack only one password and account of yours and would get access to a lot of accounts that are registered with the password management main account. This increase the risk of your information being stolen.
  2. Password management system that have an online repository is prone more to online attackers and your security would depend on how strong or weak the repository system is.
  3. Using a weak encryption system in password generation and storage also has many risks.

Conclusion

To conclude my discussion, I would suggest that before a choice is made to buy or use a free password management program, the type of encryption that it utilizes must be researched for. It is a must to know how strong the encryption is against any threats and attacks. You would not want to use a software programs that has a bad record in terms of the type of encryption it utilizes to protect the password. It is also pertinent to know where the password are stored and if the stored places are any efficient against external and internal threats.

 

 

References

Christopher, J. (2017). Benefits of Using a Password Manager | RIT Information Security.            Rit.edu. Retrieved from https://www.rit.edu/security/content/benefits-using-password-       manager

Cox, D. E. & Salahshour, A. (2003). U.S.      Patent No. 6,510,466. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent            and Trademark Office.

Pc, M. (2017). The Best Password Managers of 2018. PCMAG. Retrieved             from             https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407168,00.asp

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