Small business owners often have to wear many hats to keep their businesses up and running. As these businesses move forward and grow in size, not only do the responsibilities build up, but so does the risk of cybercrime. For small businesses, a password manager is essential as it guarantees secure password sharing, simplifies onboarding and offboarding employees and more.
What is a Business Password Manager?
Password managers are tools that provide users and businesses the ability to track, store, protect, share and manage passwords for applications and online services. Security is not the only reason for small businesses to deploy a password manager. It’s extremely difficult for employees to keep track of the many login credentials that they use to do their jobs, which harms organizational productivity. Password managers virtually eliminate the need for employees to file help desk tickets for password resets.
Keeper’s US Password Practices Report finds that password hygiene is often overlooked and has left many Americans vulnerable. Respondents admitted to duplicating their passwords and using easy-to-guess passwords – which has often led them to experience a cyber attack. The report finds that 55% of respondents have been victims of a cyber attack at least once and 18% of those respondents said that money has been stolen as a result.
Web-based password managers, such as solutions from Keeper Security, LastPass and 1Password, store passwords in a secure, cloud-based digital vault. This allows users to access passwords from anywhere, using any device. Users can access their password vaults through the password manager’s web application or by downloading the desktop app, browser extension or mobile app. Keeper is designed for your small-sized business, ensuring a fast and easy set up.
The Importance of a Business Password Manager
With cyber attacks becoming more frequent, organizations must take steps to protect their data, and they are increasingly turning to password managers. Not surprisingly, cyber attacks involving usernames and passwords increased 450% over 2019—resulting in more than one billion compromised records in the United States alone, according to the 2021 ForgeRock Consumer Identity Breach Report.
Now more than ever, it’s important to implement secure password sharing. Data breaches involving customer details, employee addresses and other private information can create legal trouble for businesses. Organizations should implement consistent cybersecurity practices to protect their businesses and employees. Password sharing is a common, but risky, practice in many workplaces that can leave companies vulnerable to a data breach. Sharing passwords is sometimes unavoidable in the workplace, since many businesses often need multiple employees to access a single user account.
Luckily, Keeper offers role-based access controls and secure password-sharing capabilities to provide you with a safe way to send passwords.
Password managers also simplify employee offboarding, making this often manual process a bit more automated and streamlined. It’s important to set offboarding procedures to ensure that access to critical systems is revoked so that former employees cannot put the company at risk. It also allows feedback from the former employee which can be beneficial in improving the company for the current and future team. Keeper makes the offboarding process easier with features such as role-based access controls and delegated administration. When an employee leaves your company, you can easily transfer their vault to another user so that credentials aren’t lost but the former employee cannot access their vault anymore.
Benefits of Having a Password Manager For Your Small Business
A password manager for your business takes the weight of security off your shoulders. These services generate and save lengthy, difficult passwords for each employee to use for their various accounts so that they aren’t reusing the same one for everything. Other benefits of using a password manager for your small business include:
One master password to access your credentials
A password manager stores all of your passwords in a single vault using one strong master password. The master password is the only password you will need to remember to access your vault.
Generates strong passwords
For each of your accounts, password managers may generate random passwords. Random passwords are usually stronger than ones you create since password cracking software is designed to try the most popular passwords first.
Access all of your accounts
Logging into accounts is simple. You can install a browser extension that will autofill logins for you without exposing the credentials. You can also launch websites directly from the password manager instead of navigating to the site yourself.
Additional data that can be safely stored in your password safe includes answers to security questions, credit cards, 2FA codes, private files and medical information.
Increased protection against phishing and identity theft
Many people fall victim to phishing sites and emails. Phishing is when an attacker sends a fake message to trick a person into revealing private information or deploying malware on their machine. Password management software can prevent users from falling prey to phishing schemes. When a user visits a website for which they have previously created an account and stored the credentials in their password vault, the password manager will recognize the site and prompt the user to log in. However, if the user is not prompted to log in by the password manager, they know to look closer at the site to ensure it’s legitimate.
A Password Manager for Small Businesses
Keeper makes staying secure simple for your business. Starting at only $2 per user/month, you can protect your business from cyber threats all while making employee’s lives easier. With its fast and easy set up, Keeper is designed for your small business.
Strong cybersecurity practices are essential, especially for small businesses who are an easy target. Even without an IT department to protect your business, Keeper’s password manager takes on that role giving you visibility, security and control over employee password habits, no technology expertise required.
To see how Keeper can protect your small business, start a free trial today.