How Secure are Online Password Managers?

If you use an online password manager (LastPass, Agilebits, mSeven, etc.) to manage all your passwords, I am sure you’ve wondered how safe is the software. The password managers often offer you the convenience to synchronize your online passwords so you can access them from any computer that has an access to the Internet.

I recently read a nice article by Michael Kassner on TechRepublic on security of online password managers. Here’s a quote from his article.

“Digital bad guys are as concerned about return on investment (ROI) as any big business. That’s why they attack credit-card processing centers rather than gathering account information one credit card at a time. It’s also why they’re more interested in cracking online password managers instead of stealing individual passwords.

Recently, it has come to our attention that someone else (U.S. Government) seems to be interested in passwords, which has people who use online password managers asking an important question, who other than the person owning the password manager account knows the master password? Or, more to the point, is it possible for anyone other than the account owner to access passwords stored in online password managers?”

You can read the entire article here to find out how secure the online password managers are.