>
Popular password manager LastPass has announced that it is about to venture into the metaverse. At this year’s Meta Connect event, curated by Facebook’s parent company Meta, the company made its 2D Progressive Web App available in the Quest app store, ushering the company into a new phase.
This is a move that makes LastPass the first of its kind to offer a Meta Quest app. In a press release, the company says that this milestone marks the password manager becoming a “key security service for virtual reality users.” As Meta continues to expand its VR ecosystem, LastPass hopes to be “vital” for business, educational, productivity and entertainment environments.
With the new Meta Quest app, LastPass users can access things like login credentials, payment cards and personal information like addresses without having to remove the VR headset. TechRadar Pro LastPass asked about the security of user passwords on a VR headset and whether additional authentication would be required.
In response we were told: “As customers [multi-factor authentication (MFA)] enabled on their account, then they still need to authenticate through that method – be it the LastPass Authenticator or another MFA option. There is no additional face ID or touch ID on the actual device. We do recommend that customers add an unlock pattern to their device and/or the app to log in.”
The free versions of LastPass allow users to store unlimited passwords, with access from one type of device. Premium plans (billed at the equivalent of £2.60/$3 per month, per year), provide access to multiple devices and bring some extras like dark web monitoring and 1GB of encrypted file storage. Both types of membership – free and paid – can use the Meta Quest app as part of their plans.
LastPass CEO Karim Toubba explained that “universal access to your logins, personal information and data should be the expectation no matter what device you use”. Many businesses are already blurring the lines between work and home accounts, but this will soon change with the incorporation of a new, digital existence.
The company’s commitment to the metaverse seems pretty solid, with further plans to bring autosave and populate to the Meta Quest Browser in early 2023, when it becomes the “first cross-device password manager” to offer native integration.
So far, no other password managers have expressed their commitment to offering metaverse apps, but it’s probably an inevitable step. Elsewhere, NordPass has already done its own research (opens in new tab) about how customers want to use the metaverse.