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I now have this problem, on a 64-bit windows 7 system with wifi (only) internet access. Secunia is already listed as a trusted site.

LastPass can and has been exploited. However, all your data is still encrypted and would take a LOOOOONG time to decipher even with multiple supercomputers. Now if the hacker also knew your master password….

Actually, your data is not just encrypted, but is ‘salted’ and encrypted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(cryptography)
Even if your passwords are weak, it would be very very difficult to crack them even if LastPass was hacked and someone acquired access.

After you get all the fixes done, there is a very good (and safe) free application called soluto (soluto.com) that you should consider. It’s an app that runs during the OS bootloader, and watches what is being loaded. It will then give you the details including time for each, and you can then use it to set each item as 1) leave in boot, 2) delay, or 3) pause. Delay means just that… soluto will load it slightly later after the OS has fully booted- thus to you it looks like you just shaved time off the boot. Pause means it is never started by the bootloader process. Obviously you need to choose carefully, but the soluto app also provides advice for well known processes, and it also knows not to let you pause or delay critical OS services and features, plus anything you do is easily undone. Give it a try… I knocked 2+ minutes off of a 5 minute boot process on a very old, slow laptop running XP SP3.

One more way to check (if you know the file name.)
http://www.processlibrary.com/

Are you running wireless? If you are then see if the problem happens when you use a wireless phone. Older phones in the 2.4Ghz region will step on a lot of wireless connections. You may want to consider a router that runs in the 5Ghz region or get phones in that region, but not both.

Almost exactly what I was thinking. My uWave oven does the same thing if my laptop is too close to the kitchen.

A bit off topic, but I agree with you about the cloud. Even the bigger players have huge issues. A few weeks ago, Amazon had huge problems with people and enterprises locked out of their accounts for days. This week Google’s blogger service hasn’t yet recovered from a maintenace release. Now imagine this happening to you… either with a regular PC, or even the upcoming Chrome laptop.
So I do enjoy the cloud, but nothing serious for me goes on there. Not without a local copy, or better, multiple local copies.

I agree with your cloud sentiments…but let me clarify that with respect to LastPass. Your passwords are not stored in the cloud via LastPass. Only hashed and salted versions of them are there. So, it effectively takes a double hack (access to the encrypted hashes, and then decryption) to access your private data from LastPass. Not impossible, but…

A couple of things. Change the passwords for ALL financial accounts. DO NOT use the same password for any of these accounts. These jerks depend on people using the same passwrods numerous times so don’t do it!

This is very good advice- and now may be the time to try LastPass, which allows you to create and use high strength, unique passwords on your various login’s. It’s highly rated and the free version is probably good enough for 90% of potential users.

The lack of encrption is not that big a deal for a home desktop PC. Very important for a laptop or netbook that could be stolen or looked at when out and about.

Jerry

I disagree. The locally stored passwords should be encrypted, whether the PC is mobile or not- as they can be accessible to malware. Firefox does this, and I’d be surprised if Chrome does not.