What’s the safest way to share passwords?

Are you worried about how to securely share information within your business? With weak, stolen or reused employee passwords being the number one reason for breaches, there’s a definite cause for concern.

But with so much information out there on how to best keep confidential company information safe, it’s sometimes hard to know where to begin. Password sharing apps are a great starting point, so read on to find out what they are and how they can protect your business.

What is a password manager?

On a typical day, login details for various business systems, programmes and documents will be shared among employees via numerous devices and platforms – from email and text to webchat and social media.

But storing and sharing sensitive information without the right protection in place poses the perfect opportunity for hackers to access this information. Wen passwords and business secrets are shared on an unsecure network, they can be easily misused. Here’s where a professional password sharing app can help, by providing an easy and secure way of storing and sharing business information.

Simple to use and quick to deploy, you don’t have to be tech-savvy to get started, and their simplicity and ease of use are ideal for encouraging team collaboration.

How does it work?

When you log into a secure site, the password manager offers to securely save your credentials. The next time you return to that site, it offers you to fill those credentials in automatically. If you’ve saved down multiple logins for the same site, the password manager lists them all for you to select. When you create new login credentials for your site, the tool will tell you if the password you’d like to use is strong enough. If it isn’t, it will suggest ways to improve it.

Some password managers can also detect when you change an account’s password and offer to automatically update the old one. Some also record your credentials for new sites automatically, for added convenience. Many password managers will do all this through a browser add-on tool.

How can it protect my business?

Here are five key ways a password sharing app can protect your business:

1. Safely store private information

Password managers for business usually use multi-factor authentication and offer single sign-on for better protection. They tend to come with a ‘secure notes’ feature, which allows employees to store passwords and other important documents that need to be kept safe but accessed easily. And all this data is safely stored in an encrypted way that is only accessible to the intended user.

2. Share information securely

You can create sharing groups, so everyone can securely share encrypted passwords or ‘secure notes’, removing the need to send details over email or chat.

3. Separate business and personal logins

Using the same password across multiple accounts, both personally and professionally, can create a major weak link in a company’s security system. Yet, according to a recent study, 1 in 8 employees are reusing personal passwords at work.

A password sharing app can make this a problem of the past by allocating a master password to each employee, and giving them access to all logins, which are automatically separated into business and personal spaces. The app will also monitor whether one or more passwords have been used multiple times across both spaces and will alert the user to change accordingly.

4. Assess security of passwords

Password managers can give each employee a password health score that helps them assess and improve the security of all their passwords – and this can be used to calculate your business’ overall score. With many tools offering personalised security alerts, employees can be told instantly if a breach may affect their data.

How secure are password management sites?

Although often praised for high security, password managers aren’t guaranteed to be out of cybercriminals’ reach. In fact, one of these password managers was hacked in August 2022. Although this attack didn’t compromise customer data or encrypted password vaults, it’s important to remain conscious that cyberattacks can still happen to even the most secure platforms.

So, if you choose to enjoy the many benefits of using a password manager, you should still change your passwords often to help protect your business and customer data.

How do I choose a good password app?

Now you’ve read about the pros and cons of password sharing apps, it’s time to decide if signing up is right for you and your business.

If you’re wondering which app to go for, some of the top-rated and best-performing password managers include Keeper Password Manager which offers a full set of advanced capabilities, excellent user experience and support for every popular platform and browser. Dashlane is another one which is praised for its wide range of features. Some other available tools include Digital Value and Soho Vault. However, you can’t really go wrong choosing any one of these services.

Although most of these apps are paid-for, they are a worthwhile investment if it means your business information will be protected.

Interested in finding out more ways you can secure your business’ information? Read our article on how to respond to the security challenge of remote working.