LastPass

LastPass is a freemium password manager that stores encrypted passwords online. The standard version of LastPass comes with a web interface, but also includes plugins for various web browsers and apps for many smartphones.[1] It also includes support for bookmarklets.[2] LogMeIn, Inc. acquired LastPass in October 2015.[3]

LastPass
Original author(s)Marvasol, Inc. (dba LastPass)
Developer(s)LogMeIn
Initial releaseAugust 22, 2008 (2008-08-22)
PlatformFirefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 11, Safari, Opera, Android 5.0 and later, iOS 11 and later, Windows 7 and later, macOS, UWP, x86 and AMD64 Linux, Maxthon[1]
Available inEnglish and 57 other languages
TypePassword manager
LicenseFreemium
Websitelastpass.com

Overview

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 the LastPass software or app extensions on. 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][4]

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.[5] 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 some other major password managers, LastPass offers a user-set password hint, allowing access when the master password is missing.[6]

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 $110 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]

Reception

In March 2009, PC Magazine awarded LastPass five stars, an "Excellent" mark, and their "Editors' Choice" for password management.[18] A new review in 2016 following the release of LastPass 4.0 earned the service again five stars, an "Outstanding" mark, and "Editors' Choice" honor.[19]

In July 2010, LastPass's security model was extensively covered and approved of by Steve Gibson in his Security Now podcast episode 256.[20] He also revisited the subject and how it relates to the National Security Agency in Security Now podcast episode 421.[21]

In October 2015 when LogMeIn acquired LastPass, founder Joe Siegrist's blog was filled with user comments voicing criticism of LogMeIn. [22] Web sites ZDNet, Forbes and Infoworld posted articles mentioning the outcry by existing customers, some of whom said they would refuse to do business with LogMeIn, and raised other concerns about LogMeIn's reputation.[23][24][25]

In a 2017 Consumer Reports article Dan Guido, the CEO of Trail of Bits, called LastPass a popular password manager (alongside Dashlane, KeePass, and 1Password), with the choice between them mostly down to personal preference.[6] In March 2019, Lastpass was awarded the Best Product in Identity Management award during the seventh annual Cyber Defense Magazine InfoSec Awards.[26]

Security issues

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' 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.[27][28]

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."[29][30]

2016 security 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.[31] 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.[32]

2017 security 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.[33]

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.[34][35]

2019 security incidents

On Friday, August 30, 2019, Tavis Ormandy reported a vulnerability in the LastPass browser extension in which Web sites with malicious JavaScript code could obtain a username and password inserted by the password manager on the previously visited site.[36][37] By September 13, 2019, Lastpass publicly announced the vulnerability, acknowledging the issue was limited to the Google Chrome and Opera extensions only; nonetheless, all platforms received the vulnerability patch.[38] [39]

See also

References
  1. "The best way to manage passwords". LogMeIn. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  2. "Bookmarklets". LogMeIn. Archived from the original on 26 February 2017. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  3. Siegrist, Joe (9 October 2015). "LastPass Joins the LogMeIn Family". blog.lastpass.com. LogMeIn. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  4. Hoffman, Chris (9 August 2012). "11 Ways to Make Your LastPass Account Even More Secure". How-To Geek.
  5. Eddy, Max (30 March 2016). "LastPass Authenticator (for iPhone)". PCMag. Ziff Davis.
  6. Chaikivsky, Andrew (7 February 2017). "Everything You Need to Know About Password Managers". Consumer Reports.
  7. Gott, Amber (2 December 2010). "LastPass Acquires Xmarks!". blog.lastpass.com. LogMeIn.
  8. Purdy, Kevin (2 December 2010). "LastPass Acquires Xmarks, Keeping Free Bookmark-Syncing Plans Available". Lifehacker. Gizmodo Media Group.
  9. Brinkmann, Martin (1 April 2018). "LogMeIn to shut down Xmarks on May 1, 2018". gHacks. Archived from the original on 1 April 2018.
  10. Brodkin, Jon (9 October 2015). "LogMeIn buys LastPass password manager for $110 million". Ars Technica. Condé Nast.
  11. Perez, Sarah (9 October 2015). "LogMeIn Acquires Password Management Software LastPass For $110 Million". TechCrunch. Oath Tech Network.
  12. Siegriest, Joe. "Meet the New LastPass Logo". LastPass. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  13. Gott, Amber (16 March 2016). "LastPass Authenticator Makes Two-Factor Easy". blog.lastpass.com. LogMeIn.
  14. Whitwam, Ryan (16 March 2016). "LastPass Releases Its Own 2-Factor Mobile Authenticator App". AndroidPolice. Illogical Robot.
  15. Siegriest, Joe (2 November 2016). "Get LastPass Everywhere: Multi-Device Access Is Now Free!". blog.lastpass.com. LogMeIn.
  16. Kastrenakes, Jacob (2 November 2016). "There's now one less excuse not to use a password manager". The Verge. Vox Media.
  17. Maring, Joe (3 August 2017). "LastPass announces pricing for 'Families' plan; doubles cost of Premium option". 9to5Google.
  18. Rubenking, Neil (20 March 2009). "LastPass 1.50 Review". PCMag. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on 24 March 2009.CS1 maint: unfit url (link)
  19. Rubenking, Neil (November 2, 2016). "LastPass 4.0 Review". PC Magazine. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  20. Gibson, Steve; Laporte, Leo (10 June 2010). "Security Now 256: LastPass Security". TWiT.tv.
  21. Gibson, Steve; Laporte, Leo (11 September 2013). "Security Now 421: The Perfect Accusation". TWiT.tv.
  22. Brodkin, Jon (9 October 2015). "LogMeIn buys LastPass password manager for $110 million". Ars Technica. Condé Nast.
  23. "LastPass bought by LogMeIn for $110 million; ... outcry from LastPass users, some of whom say they refuse to do business with LogMeIn". ZDNet. 2015-10-09. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  24. "LastPass Joins LogMeIn, But Not Everyone Is Thrilled About It". Forbes. 2015-10-09. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  25. "LogMeIn acquires LastPass to beef up identity portfolio". InfoWorld. 2015-10-09. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  26. Shah, Megha (20 March 2019). "LastPass by LogMeIn Awarded 2019 InfoSec Recognition". Tech Funnel.
  27. Siegrist, Joe (16 May 2011). "LastPass Security Notification". blog.lastpass.com. LogMeIn.
  28. Raphael, JR (5 May 2011). "LastPass CEO Explains Possible Hack". PC World. IDG.
  29. Siegrist, Joe (10 July 2015). "LastPass Security Notice". blog.lastpass.com. LogMeIn.
  30. Goodin, Dan (June 15, 2015). "Hack of cloud-based LastPass exposes hashed master passwords". Ars Technica. Condé Nast.
  31. Karlsson, Mathias (27 July 2016). "How I made LastPass give me all your passwords". Detectify Labs. Detectify.
  32. Gott, Amber (27 July 2016). "LastPass Security Updates". blog.lastpass.com. LogMeIn.
  33. Gott, Amber (22 March 2017). "Important Security Updates for Our Users". blog.lastpass.com. LogMeIn.
  34. Ormandy, Travis (25 March 2017). "{Untitled}". @taviso. Twitter.
  35. Siegrist, Joe (27 March 2017). "Security Update for the LastPass Extension". blog.lastpass.com. LogMeIn.
  36. at 19:36, Shaun Nichols in San Francisco 16 Sep 2019. "How much pass could LastPass pass if LastPass passed last pass? Login-leaking security hole fixed". www.theregister.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-09-26.
  37. "A Password-Exposing Bug Was Purged From LastPass". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2019-09-26 – via www.wired.com.
  38. "Issue 1930 - project-zero - Project Zero - Monorail". bugs.chromium.org. Retrieved 2019-09-17.
  39. Goodin, Dan (2019-09-16). "Password-exposing bug purged from LastPass extensions". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2019-09-17.
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