How To: Dashlane & LastPass Can Now Automatically Strengthen All of Your Weak Passwords

A group ironically called the "Guardians of Peace" hacked into Sony Pictures' computer systems and released a mountain of internal information such as medical records, leaked scripts, work complaints, and even celebrity aliases.

Why did this happen? Sure, a lot of well-thought-out work went into this hack, but one of the reasons it turned out as bad as it did was because of Sony's negligence when it came to the privacy of their employees. Hackers released over a hundred files which contained thousands of unprotected passwords that Sony stored in a folder called "Passwords."

You know what's even worse? Jason Spaltro, the freaking Senior Vice President of Information Security was told that Sony's employees were using weak passwords (using nouns instead of combinations of different characters), but evidently it wasn't a big deal to him.

Password strength should have been a big deal to Spaltro, and it should be a big deal to you. You don't have to be a multi-billion dollar corporation to have people out there that want your name, address, credit card number, and other important information for malicious purposes.

Automatically Make Your Weak Passwords Stronger in Dashlane

Dashlane, a password manager that we've covered before in the wake of the Heartbleed fiasco, now has a new feature that automatically changes your weak passwords to something stronger with a single click.

If you have two-factor authentication enabled, you'll get a popup asking you to answer a security question before your password is changed. The feature currently works with almost 100 major websites such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, and PayPal, but expect that number to swell up in the near future.

Sign up for Password Changer through Dashlane's website. Enter your email address to gain early access to the feature and share it through Facebook and Twitter to move up the waiting list.

Dashlane's Password Changer works on desktop versions of Dashlane for Mac and Windows.

Automatically Change Passwords When Hacked in LastPass

LastPass, another popular password manager, has also announced that they've added a new feature called Auto-Password Change, which changes passwords for you automatically. Coincidence?

Instead of you clicking anything, Auto-Password Change automatically changes your password when it notices that a website has been compromised. Just log in to your LastPass account, go to the website for which you want to set up the Auto-Password Change feature, then click on "Edit" and select "Change Password Automatically."

Currently, the feature works for a handful of major websites such as Facebook, Twitter, DropBox, and more, and is up for grabs for anyone using LastPass on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.

With either of these services in your employ, you and your information will be that much more safe and secure from malicious hackers. It's time to shore up your online persona, and Dashlane and LastPass make that process a breeze.