LastPass

Features

A user's content in LastPass, including passwords and secure notes, is protected by one master password. The content is synchronized to any device the user uses. Information is encrypted with AES-256 encryption with PBKDF2 SHA-256, salted hashes, and the ability to increase password iterations value. Encryption and decryption takes place at the device level.^[1][5]

LastPass has a form filler that automates password entering and form filling, and it supports password generation, site sharing and site logging, and two-factor authentication. LastPass supports two-factor authentication via various methods including the LastPass Authenticator app for mobile phones as well as others including YubiKey.^[6] LastPass is available as an extension to many web browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Opera. It also has apps available for smartphones running the Android, iOS, or Windows Phone operating systems. The apps have offline functionality.^[1]

Unlike other major password managers, LastPass offers a user-set password hint, allowing access when the master password is missing.^[4]

History

On December 2, 2010, it was announced that LastPass had acquired Xmarks, a web browser extension that enabled password synchronization between browsers. The acquisition meant the survival of Xmarks, which had financial troubles, and although the two services remained separate, the acquisition led to a reduced price for paid premium subscriptions combining the two services.^[7][8] On March 30, 2018, the Xmarks service was announced to be shut down on May 1, 2018, according to an email to LastPass users.^[9]

On October 9, 2015, LogMeIn, Inc. acquired LastPass for $125 million. The company was combined under the LastPass brand with a similar product, Meldium, which had already been acquired by LogMeIn.^[3][10][11]

On February 3, 2016, LastPass unveiled a new logo. The previous logo, which prominently featured an asterisk, was the subject of a trademark lawsuit filed in early 2015 by E-Trade, whose logo also features an asterisk.^[12]

On March 16, 2016, LastPass released LastPass Authenticator, a free two-factor authentication app.^[13][14]

On November 2, 2016, LastPass announced that free accounts would now support synchronizing user content to any device, a feature previously exclusive to paid accounts. Earlier, a free account on the service meant it would only sync content to one app.^[15][16]

In August 2017, LastPass announced LastPass Families, a family plan for sharing passwords, bank account info, and other sensitive data among family members for a $48 annual subscription.^[17]

2011 security incident

On Tuesday, May 3, 2011, LastPass discovered an anomaly in their incoming network traffic, then a similar anomaly in their outgoing traffic. Administrators found none of the hallmarks of a classic security breach (for example, a non-administrator user being elevated to administrator privileges), but neither could they determine the anomalies's cause. Furthermore, given the size of the anomalies, it was theoretically possible that data such as email addresses, the server salt, and the salted password hashes were copied from the LastPass database. To address the situation, LastPass took the "breached" servers offline so they could be rebuilt and, on May 4, 2011, requested all users change their master passwords. They said that while there was no direct evidence that any customer information was compromised, they preferred to err on the side of caution. However, the resulting user traffic overwhelmed the login servers, and company administrators—considering the possibility that existing passwords had been compromised was trivially small—asked users to delay changing their passwords until further notice. ^[22][23]

2015 security breach

On Monday, June 15, 2015, LastPass posted a blog post indicating that the LastPass team had discovered and halted suspicious activity on their network the previous Friday. Their investigation revealed that LastPass account email addresses, password reminders, server per user salts, and authentication hashes were compromised; however, encrypted user vault data had not been affected. The company blog said, "We are confident that our encryption measures are sufficient to protect the vast majority of users. LastPass strengthens the authentication hash with a random salt and 100,000 rounds of server-side PBKDF2-SHA256, in addition to the rounds performed client-side. This additional strengthening makes it difficult to attack the stolen hashes with any significant speed."^[24][25]

2016 incidents

In July 2016, a blog post published by independent online security firm Detectify detailed a method for reading plaintext passwords for arbitrary domains from a LastPass user's vault when that user visited a malicious web site. This vulnerability was made possible by poorly written URL parsing code in the LastPass extension. The flaw was not disclosed publicly by Detectify until LastPass was notified privately and able to fix their browser extension.^[26] LastPass responded to the public disclosure by Detectify in a post on their own blog, in which they revealed knowledge of an additional vulnerability, discovered by a member of the Google Security Team, and already fixed by LastPass.^[27]

2017 incidents

On March 20, Tavis Ormandy discovered a vulnerability in the LastPass Chrome extension. The exploit applied to all LastPass clients, including Chrome, Firefox and Edge. These vulnerabilities were disabled on March 21, and patched on March 22.^[28]

On March 25, Ormandy discovered an additional security flaw allowing remote code execution based on the user navigating to a malicious website. This vulnerability was also patched.^[29][30]