Cyber-attack is a major bane of businesses today. It affects customers’ trust and weakens any organization’s progress. Enterprises must engage the best enterprise password management practices to prevent the malicious activities of hackers.
In the US alone, more than 1200 breaches were reported in 2017 and over 176 million records were exposed. This suggests that enterprises are at the core of the data breach crisis. Also in 2017, 91 percent of enterprise files were breached.
Managing passwords for an enterprise is more sophisticated than for private accounts. Individual password protection can’t match enterprise needs. Furthermore, the use of a physical method makes human error and theft possible. A 2018 report reveals that weak passwords caused 81 percent of data breaches experienced by enterprises, as well as ineffective storage of passwords by members of staff.
In this article, you will learn which best practices to integrate into your enterprise password management policy and procedures. Read on.
What is Enterprise Password Management?
In this era of widespread cyber-attacks and cyber-espionage, password security is crucial to your company’s digital protection. The use of enterprise password management software is a critical factor in any organization. But, first, what is enterprise password management?
Enterprise password management is the storage and administration of sensitive data such as passwords, records and digital identities of businesses. With enterprise password management, you’re able to change or remove passwords when employees leave the organization or change group operations.
Password entry and management is time-consuming and complicated in big enterprises. However, managing individual and non-human authorized accounts is vital for corporate IT and security teams. Enterprise password management practices should examine password routine at intervals to reduce the threat of cyberattacks.
Whenever employees go from one level to another or new assignments, you’d need to create new passwords or have them changed, rotated or removed.
This is necessary to reveal precise access clearance for shared and secure systems. It’s also beneficial for joint accounts and networks that must be protected.
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Enterprise Password Management Best Practices
Creating, revolving, and monitoring passwords should occur without affecting productivity in the workplace or for your systems. Passwords that are no longer in use should be removed.
An effective enterprise password management solution removes the lure to share passwords and evade defense restraints.
Companies should install enterprise-level Privileged Access Management (PAM) software and enforce enterprise password management best practices throughout their organizations. PAM software helps businesses to initiate automation to password administration, so passwords can be changed, rotated and terminated on an automatic schedule. PAM regulates passwords effectively when a staff-member leaves the organization or a cyberattack happens.
Passwords in use should be tracked and reported, and employees’ actions also monitored and recorded as they access the sensitive information protected by company passwords.
Companies can also ascertain and prove adherence to fulfilling their industry’s audit regulations for safeguarding passwords.
Other Enterprise Password Management Best Practises
- Reduce your organization’s use of passwords. Try substitutes for multiple passwords like adopting single sign-on systems or password integration. Use passwords for only systems that need secure access.
- Reject simple password choices. You may check for commonly hacked passwords.
- Monitor account activities and let users know of any odd login attempts. Notifying users of successful and unsuccessful logins will in turn let the company know if those attempts were their own or not.
- Accounts should be locked after 10 password guesses. This protects against cyberattacks.
- Ensure your staff change passwords only when it’s been compromised. Frequent changing of password results in weak passwords.
- Shared passwords should be avoided. Accounts that are not used regularly often have a sole password that employees share — this is risky and can lead to a breach.
- You’d need to always have your software updated. Critical security repairs are common when the software is updated.
- You’ll also want to desist from using default passwords. Default passwords should be changed before deploying them on your systems.
- Employees should be discouraged from saving passwords in plain sight or their files, making the files easy to find. The texts can be encrypted to hide them from plain sight.
Enterprise Password Management (EPM) Software
EPM software is an extensive remedy for enterprise password management, which erases the chore of the manual system of password management and reduces the threat of a cyberattack.
Enterprise password management software gives password defense for all kinds of classified accounts through your network system. It adopts security controls to impede internal and external risk from seizing master passwords or gaining access to classified systems and information. Additionally, it aids the automated rotation of passwords instead of wasting hours changing them one after the other. It automatically updates utilized access.
It has in-built capacities for task functions and accurate coverage that gives you full control and compliance. They’re attainable across all platforms, so you’d be saving time and protecting your data across all possible attack surfaces.
Examples of Enterprise Password Management Software
Enterprise password management software consists of applications that keep passwords in an encrypted medium or on cloud storage. Wouldn’t you want to know a few?
- Thycotic Secret Server: This can manage more than a thousand enterprise passwords. There are various business packs at different pricing ranges, making it a good option for an organization’s IT team.
- LastPass: It can be used on a mobile device application or browser extension. It stores passwords in a centralized, secure data vault.
- Dashlane: This software makes use of a password generator to generate and keep complex passwords, rotating in new passwords once in 90 days. It also checks the internet for leaked data or theft.
- 1Password: This software stores data in a centralized system.
- CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault: This software tool utilizes a secure system to keep data and monitor access.
Why Your Enterprise Needs Password Management
There are a few reasons why your business needs password management in addition to protection against cyberattacks. Here are some of these reasons:
Time-Saving
Enterprise password management helps to make your IT team job easy and save time. With the automated setup and removal of redundant accounts, It helps you reduce time on task, and enable comprehensive record-keeping and analysis.
Connectivity
Password management is simplified as your PAM solution and merged with other essential IT networks. PAM applies to non-human account credentials needed for applications and services to function. It’s important to keep these data in a high-speed vault so they are managed, monitored, and removed according to your security policies.
Accountability
Auditing and reporting are vital to enterprise password management to verify adherence to auditors and benefits to executives. Enterprise password security software enables thorough reporting on security policies you employ to manage and protect passwords.
Ease
Contractors and partners may require temporary passwords. This can be created, managed and removed when their project with the organization is over. You can also keep tabs on third-party users, to give access, monitor, or even record sessions.
Closing Thoughts
Security is a great source of concern for businesses that control vast amounts of data, especially with the continued increased trends in cyberattacks every year. Customers’ trust and confidence are what organizations strive to keep and that can be easily jeopardized in a single cyber-attack.
However, enterprise password management software ensures efficient password management and reduces the chances of successful breaches to customers’ data. The knowledge of enterprise password and best practices is not enough. Choosing the best EPM software personalized for your enterprise is not a decision you can leave to chance, but you can entrust to RSI Security.
RSI Security is a leading managed security service provider (MSSP) that can provide your organization with intrusion detection and penetration testing. We will work together with you to help you assess vulnerability levels and manage security information and passwords. We will also help you to ensure compliance with regulatory mandates and industry standards with the right enterprise password management tools.
Contact us today to avoid the damaging impacts of being exposed to cyberattacks on your enterprise. Our team of security experts and technologies will kill your EPM worries and enable you to focus on other activities that are core to growing your business.