Your small business should rely on a password manager to ensure your employees use strong passwords, to simplify onboarding and offboarding processes, securely share files, avoid potentially losing money from a cyber attack and improve employee productivity. A business password manager allows you and your employees to store and protect all passwords, with each employee having their own digital vault.
Continue reading to learn the five benefits of using a password manager for your small business and what to look for in an effective password manager.
1. Ensures each employee is using strong passwords
If your small business uses a password manager, you can easily enforce strong password security policies for all your employees. You can set a minimum password length and require that all employees use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on their accounts related to your business for extra security. A password manager can also identify passwords that are weak or being reused, which can help employees determine which passwords need to be changed. With complete visibility into employee password practices, a password manager makes it easy to enforce the use of strong passwords.
2. Simplifies employee onboarding and offboarding
Your small business deserves a convenient way to onboard and offboard employees, and having a password manager can simplify these tedious tasks. A password manager aids the onboarding and offboarding processes by enabling you to securely share passwords when an employee first arrives and quickly change them if an employee leaves. For onboarding, a password manager conveniently stores and organizes an employee’s login credentials based on their role, taking less time for you to set up the new employee’s accounts. When offboarding, a password manager lets you remove a former employee’s access to all systems and quickly change their passwords so they cannot compromise any business data. Most password managers also support automated provisioning and de-provisioning when integrated with your identity provider.
3. Enables secure password and file sharing
You and your employees need to be able to securely share passwords and files within your small business to reduce the risk of compromised data. Passwords and files shared over email are unencrypted, which means they could be intercepted by a cybercriminal. Worse than sharing important information over email is writing passwords down on a sticky note or piece of paper that could easily be picked up by anyone and used to compromise business data. Using a password manager to share important passwords and files keeps your business’ confidential data secure and ensures it goes to the correct recipient.
4. Saves money in the long run
Password managers can help your small business save money in the long run in the event of a cyber attack. For example, if your small business did not have a password manager in place and used weak passwords, it could suffer a data breach and be forced to shut down completely if its data or finances were compromised, not to mention the tarnished reputation. According to Verizon’s 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report, 68% of data breaches occur due to an employee making an error or falling victim to phishing scams. It would cost much less to invest in a password manager to protect your financial information, customer data and other online accounts than to risk being unable to recover following a cyber attack.
5. Improves employee productivity
With a password manager, your employees can be more productive since they won’t have to remember passwords on their own or spend time resetting them. The only password employees need to remember is their master password, which acts as the key to enter their vault. Additionally, since password managers also help employees generate strong passwords with its built-in password generator, employees save time by not having to create them on their own.
With Keeper®, there is even a feature called KeeperFill, which automatically logs you in on any device, web browser or operating system, as long as you’ve downloaded the app or browser extension. Having this feature for your small business’ password management will help any employee log in to their accounts without needing to adjust to a different device, web browser or operating system for work.
Source: Keeper