A password manager like LastPass can securely store your many, many passwords – or generate new complex ones. You’ll only need to remember the one master password to access them. Other benefits include protection against phishing and off campus account compromises.
Full information is available at: http://oit.williams.edu/help-docs/lastpass-password-manager/
A brief introduction if you are not familiar with the benefits of a password manager:
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- Utilize a master password which unlocks all the other site passwords. The idea is you then don’t have to remember or even create the other passwords, they can all be different and randomly generated.
- Avoid phishing attempts – any attempt by a web site or email to direct you to a fake site like faceboot.com won’t work since the password manager will know it’s not correct and refuse to enter your password.
- Since you are using different passwords for every site a single compromise like at LinkedIn won’t affect any other site.
- Since you’re using complex and non-sequential passwords they can’t be guessed or socially engineered.
- You won’t be using your browsers password manager which is less secure and can be compromised by malware.
There are other features as well, and there are also many other password managers besides LastPass. LastPass is one that is well established and recommended by many other colleges. OITs testing and experience with it has been very positive.