New password management service available to help protect your online accounts

Of all the security measures you can take to protect yourself online, the most crucial may be safeguarding your passwords.  

With sites requiring more complex passwords, and the best practice advice to avoid using the same password for multiple services, it can become easy to lose track of passwords and risk exposure to your accounts. According to some studies, the average person now has around 100 online accounts that require a password – a difficult quantity to remember.  

To combat this security risk, Purdue Information Technology is partnering with LastPass to give all faculty, staff and students on the West Lafayette, Fort Wayne and Northwest campuses access to the LastPass password manager for managing all their online passwords. 

A password manager is a software application that stores and manages your online credentials in an encrypted database. LastPass works by installing a browser extension on your computer or an app on your mobile device that allows you to save account passwords in a “vault” and apply them simply by using your one LastPass password. LastPass can also alert you to possible compromised passwords found on the dark web due to a data breach.  

“Password managers have become a standard security practice today, for good reason. Generating a strong, unique password that is easy to remember can be a chore itself as complexity requirements vary across systems,” said Justin Greer, director of enterprise security for Purdue IT. “Services like LastPass simplify and protect password management, from creation, to storage, to retrieval. We are pleased to make it available to the Purdue community.” 

To learn more about LastPass, including how to request an account, visit Purdue IT’s LastPass information page 

Users should sign up by filling out the form for their campus. The page also answers questions about how current LastPass subscribers will be migrated to the new Purdue account and how to transfer your passwords from a different password manager to your LastPass account.  

Last updated: Feb. 16, 2023