Norton Password Manager Review

Securely Store Your Passwords in an Encrypted Vault That Only You Can Access

You can save an unlimited number of passwords and other sensitive data, including credit card details and addresses, in your vault. To gain access to your vault, you need to enter your master password which can be compared to the key to your home. This is the only password you will ever need to remember again since Norton will auto-fill your login credentials (more on that later). This is not unique to Norton, but rather a standard set of features that is to be expected.

Data from other password managers can be imported into your Norton vault (but I wouldn’t recommend switching since Norton’s password manager is the worst one I have tested). Alternatively, you can add new credentials as and when you browse the internet. For example, once you visit a new site and create an account, or change a password of an existing account, Norton will ask if it should be saved in your vault.

Previously, you could choose to either have a local or cloud vault. If you initially decide to use a local vault and later choose to change to a cloud-based one, the contents of your local vault would be transferred to the cloud one but in the process, the data stored in your local one would be permanently removed. This makes for a really poor user experience for existing customers and is one of the main reasons why I rate Norton so low on ease-of-use. Norton has now abandoned the local vault meaning new users only have access to the cloud version.

However, Norton’s cloud vault can only be accessed from another device that already has the Norton Password Manager browser extension installed. This, again, puts a dent in Norton’s ease of use. Other, more adept, password managers like Dashlane, provide web vaults. These vaults can be accessed from any browser like you would access any other website. They are not dependent on a browser extension, meaning you can login and use your password manager on any device.

Create Complex Passwords With the Built-in Password Generator

Using a password generator is crucial because password strength is vital to improving online security. As humans, we find it difficult to create strong, complex passwords for every account that we have. It’s no surprise that we reuse the same passwords, especially since the average person can have up to 97 work-related passwords, and that’s not even including personal ones.

The Norton password generator offers an easy solution that can be accessed from within your vault to create strong, unique passwords for every account you have. You can select the number of characters, the use of numbers, punctuation marks, and capital or lowercase letters.

Although it is a nice touch, there are far better generators to use. For example, Bitwarden has one where it will calculate the amount of time needed by a hacker to crack your password. Having additional insight like this can make the difference to the security of your accounts.

Auto Change Multiple Passwords at Once

Auto change enhances your online security with its ability to automatically change passwords for online accounts without you needing to navigate to different websites. It works by directly logging into each account and uses the password generator to create new passwords on your behalf.

After auto change has worked its magic, your new passwords are automatically saved in your vault, ready for use next time you want to log in.

However, it doesn’t always work. If some sites require two-factor authentication (i.e. send you a code via SMS that you have to enter to gain access), you need to manually authenticate the login.

One good thing about auto change is that it will clearly show you which accounts have been successfully updated, as well as those that were not. It does this by using green and red indicators. The green equals success, the red equals failure.

Another indicator of the effectiveness of auto change is your safety score. Norton provides a score based on how strong your passwords are. If the score is increased, your accounts have become more secure.

Not all password managers offer auto change so Norton can be commended here, especially as it can be a time-saver when you quickly need to update many passwords at once.

Auto-fill & Save Your Credentials

Auto-fill and save is crucial to all password managers. Without it, they are useless.

As a standard feature, Norton auto-fills your credentials when visiting sites you have accounts with. It will ask you to authorize the filling of your data before completing an online form. This helps to keep your personal information safe and gives you greater control over where your sensitive data is filled.

Surprisingly, Norton’s auto-fill feature is as easy to use as the market-leading password managers including Dashlane, LastPass and 1Password. You just need to click on the Norton icon within the form field and select the login you want to fill.

In addition to usernames and passwords, you can save credit card and address details including your name, date of birth, physical address, gender, phone numbers, and email addresses in your secure vault. Although your primary use of the password manager will be for login credentials, adding these additional details enables a seamless form-filling experience. I highly suggest taking advantage of adding all the different types of data available.

For example, say you decide to shop online. You visit Amazon and let Norton auto-fill your login credentials. Once logged in, you pick a product and go to checkout. Norton then fills your card and address credentials. You’ve completed your transaction and all it took was 3 clicks. One to log in, another to fill your card details, and the final one to enter your address. You didn’t need to scramble around the house trying to find your wallet or manually enter your details. Auto-fill did all the hard work for you.

Not only can creating payment profiles lead to a faster checkout process, using Norton to securely fill your credentials makes them less susceptible to cybercrime. You no longer need to rely on the websites that you are using to save your card information, instead, you can keep it in your encrypted vault and fill it whenever you need at a click of a button. If you were to store your card credentials in a retailer’s site and their database was to be hacked – your details could be exposed and exploited by hackers.

Similarly, auto-save is simple and straightforward to use. Once you visit a new site and create an account, or change a password of an existing account, Norton sends a push-notification that pop-ups on your screen asking whether to save the new login credentials to your vault.

Secure Notes

Besides the storing of credentials, you can also save secure notes. This can be important information like passport or license numbers, frequent flyer information, or any text needed for future reference.

From having used a wide range of password managers, I don’t tend to use secure notes all that often, but one tip that I can share with you to make your life easier is to save answers to security questions in your notes. The majority of online accounts require you to enter a security question and answer as a backup for recovering your account if you forget your password. We are all guilty of flippantly entering this information and it can be forgotten quickly. Using secure notes is a good way to keep a record of your security answers. These are encrypted using the same security protocols as all the other information stored in your vault, so you can rest assured that they are safe.

Sync Your Vault Across All Your Devices

To make password management painless across devices, you need to be able to effectively sync your vault. For example, if you add a new password to your vault while using the cloud vault via desktop, you’d also want access to that on your mobile device via the app, and vice-versa.

While Norton supports device syncing across all devices, you first need to authorize each device you want to use. The good news is that there is no limitation on the number of devices that you can sync across. The bad news is that you need to manually sync your data. This only takes a few seconds and a click of a button but it lags behind the competition where your vaults are automatically synced without having to lift a finger. It’s easy to forget to sync your vaults which can be frustrating at times.

During the data synchronization process, the contents of your vault are protected by TLS (Transport Layer Security) which wraps your sensitive information in a security shield to avoid man-in-the-middle attacks. Man-in-the-middle attacks secretly relay and, sometimes, alter the communication between two parties.

TLS protects your data against hackers as it travels from Norton’s cloud servers across the internet to your vault in the same way that bubble wrap protects a fragile package as it is being transported.

Safety Dashboard

The Safety Dashboard simply shows the health status of all your stored passwords. The purpose is to aid you in improving the level of complexity of your passwords to strengthen the security of your accounts.

The insights provided are actionable – they highlight duplicate, old, and weak passwords that need to be changed. You can either use the password generator to manually change them or use auto change to let Norton do all the hard work for you by changing multiple passwords at once.

Each password is given a security score. All your scores are then aggregated to formulate an overall score.

A major pitfall is that there is no report to highlight passwords or other credentials that may have been exposed in data breaches. So, although the safety dashboard is a nice feature, it’s not a fool-proof method to truly measure the strength of your security. Data breaches exposed 4.1 billion records in the first half of 2019. Compromised data is often sold on the dark web where cybercriminals can exploit your identity for financial gain. Therefore, data breach reports are vitally important and should be a feature of any password manager that you choose. The best reporting mechanism that I’ve used is Dashlane’s Dark Web Scan that continually monitors the dark web searching for any compromised personal information including usernames and passwords, credit card numbers, phone numbers, addresses, and much more.

Biometric Access

Although your master password is the only password you will ever need to remember again, you can opt to use either your fingerprint or Face ID to unlock your vault on your mobile device. It is as effortless to unlock your vault as it is to unlock your phone.

This feature extends beyond just being able to log into your vault, it is crucial that if you decide to sign up to Norton (which I don’t recommend) that you immediately set up biometric access. Here’s why:

There is no way to recover or reset a master password without erasing the contents of your vault if your mobile device doesn’t support biometric authentication. Your fingerprint or Face ID becomes your master password and therefore, gives you the opportunity to reset your password if you forget it.

Mobile Unlock

Very simply, mobile unlock lets you unlock your vault without having to manually enter your master password.

Once you launch a desktop browser that has the Norton Password Manager extension installed, a vault unlock request notification is automatically sent to your mobile device for you to approve.

It seems like Norton introduced this feature to make up for a lack of two-factor authentication but it doesn’t cut the mustard. (You can read more about the absence of two-factor authentication in the security section).

Automatic Logout

You can set the password manager to perform an automatic logout after a set period of inactivity.

This is particularly useful when other people have access to your computer or when you are away from your desk, but does it make up for the pitfalls in the security model? I’m afraid not.