LastPass and Dashlane announce automatic password changers

If you ever had your computer compromised by a computer virus, hacker or other malicious software running on it you know that you are done after you remove the threat from it or format it.

Depending on what happened, you may also need to change passwords online. The same is true if a service got hacked on the Internet that you have been a member of, and things get even worse if you happen to use the same password and email address at a lot of sites.

Having to change passwords on all of those sites can take a long time. I just checked my KeePass database for example and it contains hundreds of accounts. If I would have to change all of them, I'd spend at least a day doing that and nothing but.

The companies LastPass and Dashlane, both known for password managers, announced the beta launch of automatic password changers today. It is interesting to note that both companies are not associated in any way.

Anyway, the basic idea behind the feature is to use the software to change account passwords automatically. Dashlane users can sign up for the beta on this website.

The feature supports a total of 71 websites and services right now that include Twitter, Reddit, Spotify, Samsung, Skype, Yelp, Outlook, Ikea, LinkedIn and Google to name a few. The full list of sites and services supported is available here.

A click on one of the supported sites in the password changer menu will change the account password automatically. There is also a "change all passwords" button to change passwords on all supported sites.  According to The Verge, the feature comes courtesy of PassOmatic which Dashlane acquired some time ago.

Passwords that are generated are unique and random according to Dashlane. It even supports sites with two-factor authentication but a prompt will appear in this case in which the code needs to be entered.

LastPass announced a similar feature today as well but it works in a slightly different fashion than Dashlane's solution. The company's Auto-Password Change module has been added to the beta version of LastPass on Chrome, Safari and Firefox (starting with version 3.1.70).

The feature supports 75 different web services and sites currently including Facebook, Amazon and Dropbox.  The change password automatically button appears when you click on edit for a supported site.

When clicked, LastPass opens a new tab in the browser, logs you in, creates a new password, submits that new password to the service and saves it on a successful edit in LastPass.

Closing Words

I can see the appeal of the solution and it is likely that many Internet users who use these password managers will make use of it. Others may dislike the fact that the whole process is taken out of their hands.