App Introduces Automatic Password Changer
Dashlane is a popular password manager app.
Changing passwords is a pain, so password manager Dashlane has come up with an easier way to do it.
Instead of going from website to website to make changes, Dashlane Tuesday adds a new feature to do it automatically within the app.
Password Changer is touted as a one click solution for constant security breaches. The software generates the combinations of letters, numbers and symbols on multiple websites to throw off hackers.
The service is in beta, and available at http://dashlane.com/password-changer-beta
In the wake of so many Internet hacks in 2014, password manager apps have emerged as a popular way to generate tough passwords with symbols, letters and numbers, and to keep track of them.
Just last week, Dashlane competitor PasswordBox was sold to Intel, and will be part of the chip giant’s security suite.
Most password managers are free, and charge when you use more advanced features, like syncing passwords among multiple devices.
Dashlane, for instance, is free for its 2.5 million members on one computer, but charges $39.99 to keep track of passwords on phones, computers, tablets and the like.
In a world where we are now encouraged to have a new password for every website we visit, “managing different passwords is really painful,” says Dashlane co-founder Alexis Fogel.
[one_fourth]
Dashlane’s Password Generator is in beta, and works with a set number of 50 websites, which Dashlane hopes to expand over the next few months.(The list includes Amazon, Dropbox, eBay, Facebook, Google, PayPal, Twitter and Yahoo.)
In adding this new feature, Dashlane acquired New York startup PassOmatic, the company that created the automatic password change technology. Terms were not disclosed.
Passwords are changed by opening the app, going to the Generator feature, and choosing which website to change. Dashlane picks the hard to crack collection of numbers, symbols and letters for you, instead of the choices most people make—their names, addresses and “password” or “123456.”
For now, you have to change each website password one by one, but Fogel says Dashlane will add an auto feature that lets you change all of your combined passwords with just one click.
The average Dashlane user has 50 passwords, and learned the hard way that using the same password on all of them is an invitation to be hacked. “Even if just one account gets hacked, your entire digital identity is at risk,” says Fogel.
Emmanuel Schalit, Dashlane’s CEO, says his goal is to make passwords “irrelevant for consumers,” and to have an app that people use and “never need to know, type, remember or even change their passwords.”
Dashlane has received $30 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital and Rho Ventures.
