Vulnerability to hacking and other attacks found in all modern CPUs, especially Intel

[Hubble]

If you have a PC or Mac of any kind or iPhone or android phone running an Intel chip, AMD chip (although these are less affected) newer than about 2010 then your device is vulnerable to hacking, it has been revealed. This means someone can hack your device, get all your passwords, personal info and so on.

I'm not sure how much publicity this is getting, but it's genuine and it's advisable to rake some form of precaution. Here's one article that explains it: https://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/how-t...c-android-ios/

"Practically every modern processor is vulnerable. We're updating this list of fixes as they become available."

[Itsonlyagame]

Cheers Hubs.
Read about it somewhere yesterday, food for thought (and action)

[Stanley]

Use LastPass. It encrypts and stores all your passwords over secure servers. You only have to remember one master password (hence the name). Been using it safely for years. Alan our tech admin recommended it. Means you don’t have to store any valuable data on any of your devices as it encrypts docs too and syncs across all platforms. I have no affiliation with them.

[Hubble]

Use LastPass. It encrypts and stores all your passwords over secure servers. You only have to remember one master password (hence the name). Been using it safely for years. Alan our tech admin recommended it. Means you don’t have to store any valuable data on any of your devices as it encrypts docs too and syncs across all platforms. I have no affiliation with them.

Interesting idea, but somehow I'm not 100% a fan of storing all my passwords in a cloud service. What happens if their site goes down or gets hacked Stan?

[Stanley]

Interesting idea, but somehow I'm not 100% a fan of storing all my passwords in a cloud service. What happens if their site goes down or gets hacked Stan?

LastPass stores your data on its own servers in the cloud as well as on your device. It implements AES-256 bit encryption and salted hashes to ensure complete security in the cloud. You’ll create an account with an email address and a strong master password to locally-generate a unique encryption key.

Local-only encryption.
Your data is encrypted and decrypted at the device level. Data stored in your vault is kept secret, even from LastPass. Your master password, and the keys used to encrypt and decrypt data, are never sent to LastPass’ servers, and are never accessible by LastPass.

Two-factor authentication.
Two-factor authentication (sometimes referred to as multifactor or 2FA) adds extra security to your LastPass account by requiring a second login step before authorizing access to your vault

It also claims compliance with Service Organization Controls (SOC) SOC 2 compliance is developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, which assesses whether a company that stores customer information in the cloud manages to meet five trust service principles: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy.

This is a make-or-break issue for some businesses and governmental agencies using cloud services. But if you're a personal or family user, rest assured that this means the company thoroughly documents its security policies and procedures and has to undergo audits.

https://www.lastpass.com/how-lastpass-works

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/lastpass,review-3775.html

Personally never had any issues in 3+ years of using it. Never seen a negative review for it either. A few here:

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3205868/security/lastpass-review-this-virtual-vault-makes-password-protection-effortless.html

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/lastpass

http://uk.pcmag.com/lastpass/504/review/lastpass

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/lastpass,review-3775.html

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3205868/security/lastpass-review-this-virtual-vault-makes-password-protection-effortless.html

[Hubble]

Thanks for your reply mate, but it doesn't address what happens if Lastpass is hacked or goes down. And what happens if you're hacked and the hacker reads your master password?

[Stanley]

Thanks for your reply mate, but it doesn't address what happens if Lastpass is hacked or goes down. And what happens if you're hacked and the hacker reads your master password?

I've never had an experience of the site going down. I'm assuming they have safeguards in place for that like multiple server backups? But even in that event, as above, your data can be stored locally too with encryption and 2FA too.

Re Master password - you would never store that on any of your devices. You'd only store it in your head, which for most people is easy enough as it means only ever having to remember one password.

If LastPass was to be successfully hacked that scenario is addressed above and in the first two links mate.