- In a blog post, popular password manager LastPass announced that it’s separating from its parent company GoTo and will now be operating independently.
- After being hit by multiple security attacks back to back, the company is probably trying to reform its ways to win back customer trust.
- Many new initiatives such as establishing a threat intelligence team have already been taken.
On Wednesday (May 1), LastPass announced that it’s finally cutting ties with parent company GoTo in a bid to become independent. The decision was first announced in December 2021 but is now being finally executed.
LastPass will now work independently under a shareholder holding company called LMI Parent.
What Does This Mean for LastPass?
The new journey comes with a lot of new changes for the company. Considering it has been hit by a number of cyber attacks one after the other, it’s completely revolutionizing its security approach—surely a change for the better.
LastPass will now be working under an executive team that has expert experience in cybersecurity. For this, it has hired new chief marketing, chief product, and chief information officers, all with good technical know-how of cybersecurity matters to guide the company toward a safer future.
Furthermore, LastPass also hired a new threat intelligence team. This team is responsible for monitoring and analyzing the platform and handling vulnerabilities at the earliest possible time so that users can go about their day without any worries.
In 2023 alone, the above-mentioned threat intelligence team managed to reduce the amount of data stolen and sold by online miscreants by 98%.
The world is changing at a rapid rate, and while that’s all good in most ways, it also means that companies have to deal with more advanced types of threats. In order to prepare for the future, LastPass has decided to focus on financial investments towards technology and more research.
It’s important to note that Karim Toubba, the CEO of LastPass, will continue to serve his post even after the separation. Addressing this news, he expressed his gratitude and excitement for the company’s new phase and said:
“We are entering this new era with a strong market position, underpinned by an unmatched threat intelligence apparatus and an executive team with vast experience spanning multiple security fields.”
The CEO further added that on this new journey, their only aim is to create a platform that’s secure and never compromises on quality or performance.
LastPass and Its Troubled Past
For the past few years, LastPass has been the favorite target of hackers. The problems started when some hackers stole its source code in August 2022. Then in November of that year, the company confirmed that the hackers used those codes to gain access to certain elements of the platform.
Back then, LastPass assured the users that their passwords were safe. However, the truthfulness of this statement is a big question because in 2023 some researchers found that the information stolen from LastPass has been used to steal over $35 million from crypto wallets from over 150 users.
Now, if there were to be a silver lining in all this, it’d be that in every attack, the company has always been quick to take action. Every incident was immediately investigated and necessary actions were taken.
In addition to that, LastPass in January started making it compulsory for passwords to be a minimum of 12 characters as an extra security step to prevent such attacks.
However, these actions didn’t seem to be enough. A complete repositioning by stepping away from the old management (i.e. GoTo) seems to be its best bet to regain the trust of its users.
Perhaps LastPass will prove its worth and claw its way back to our list of the best password managers? Only time will tell. But for now, the decision to go independent is surely a positive step in that direction.
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