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Implementing password security best practices across your team does more than just keep your accounts safe. It also improves efficiency by avoiding those incidents where you get locked out of a mission-critical account because you can’t remember the password. Again. There’s a better way to access your accounts than by regularly resetting your password until you’ve run out of creative combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols. (Not to mention that research shows the more often you manually reset your passwords, the weaker they become.) 

 

Storing your account credentials in a stand-alone password manager will strengthen your account security, guaranteed. (Please don’t use your website browser.) It will also ensure you no longer waste time trying to search your memory or office for a password that you jotted down in your planner, on a sticky note, or in some other mysterious and highly vulnerable location. When you select a password management service, it’s important to choose a service you can trust and one that allows for easy, secure access by your IT provider. The solution that we now recommend is Passportal. Here’s why: 

 

Access and manage all your login credentials in one place

Too many businesses still rely on a scattershot approach to password management. A common scenario is that only Jim knows the login credentials for payroll while Lisa set the passwords for the company’s social channels. If either Jim or Lisa goes on vacation and forgets to share the login information with their backup, the team is locked out of those accounts. 

 

The other common scenario is for an employee to forget a password and do one too many login attempts locking them out of the account for several hours. Or, an account admin may forget a password and decide to create a new one but fail to notify other team members. 

 

All of these scenarios result in unnecessary panic, frustration, and a loss of productivity. A password management service like Passportal provides one organized, secure place to store all your credentials to business accounts, making the above scenarios obsolete.     

 

Auto-generate strong passwords

Creating a unique, strong password for all your accounts is an arduous task to accomplish manually. Passportal auto-generates strong passwords that meet the most recent security guidelines and can schedule passwords to auto-expire every 15 days (or whatever length of time your IT provider recommends). When a password expires, Passportal will automatically generate a new password for the account. For those accounts that don’t allow auto-expiration, Passportal tracks when a password is overdue for an update and flags it as critical, alerting you or your IT provider. It also shows the strength (or weakness) of each password so you can always ensure that each of your accounts is securely protected.  

 

Centrally control employee access

It’s typically not wise to grant all of your employees access to every account associated with your business. For security purposes, it’s best to only grant an employee access to those accounts he or she requires to complete their job. It can be hard, however, to keep track of who has what login information. Now, when onboarding a new employee, simply add them to Passportal and grant them access to the necessary accounts. Should that employee leave, you can easily revoke access to accounts by updating the passwords and removing them from Passportal. 

 

Integrate with your browser

Passportal can integrate with Google Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and all Chromium-based browsers for easy one-click login and the ability to create, edit, view, and search login credentials directly from your browser. Once you login to a site manually, Passportal will capture those credentials (with your permission) and then autofill your username and password upon future logins. If you prefer not to save your credentials through your internet browser, you can still speed up your login process by launching any website from your Passportal account for automatic login. 

 

Implement 2FA Policies 

We know that two-factor authentication provides an extra layer of much-needed security during the login process, but it takes time to ensure that this feature is activated across all your accounts. Passportal can help implement 2FA for all accounts (or only those you select) and flag those that don’t yet require this extra login step.    

 

Organize login credentials into folders

Make it easy to locate accounts by organizing your login credentials into titled folders, such as finance, HR, new business, and social channels. You or your IT provider can also then easily review accounts by category, ensuring that all meet current security standards and that the right people have access. With Passportal it’s easy to grant and revoke access to different folders as your team changes and as you add new accounts with different access requirements.

 

Secure access for your IT provider 

Passportal gives your IT Managed Service Provider secure access so they can login to your accounts to make necessary updates. When a password is changed, you and your IT service provider automatically have the new login credentials, bypassing the need for phone calls or sharing a password through an insecure channel such as email, text, or manually updated  spreadsheets. As the business owner, you always have the ability to revoke access to anyone else on the account. You can also give your IT provider the ability to revoke access to non-admin users, such as terminated employees.  

 

My Vault for private credentials 

There’s no need to share all your usernames and passwords with your IT provider. Passportal has a private folder called My Vault where you can store private credentials that only you can see. Your IT Provider and select employees only have access to accounts in the Company Vault. 

 

Passportal can never access your data  

When you grant someone access to your Passportal account, they use a unique username and password to login. As the owner, you also set up what’s called an “organization key” which acts as an extra layer of encryption. Passportal has no way to decrypt your organization key so they can never access your data. This helps to ensure that cybercriminals can’t take advantage of a vulnerability in Passportal’s software and gain access to your account.  

 

Ask us about Passportal 

If you’re interested in using Passportal to manage your passwords, get in touch. Someone from our team will be happy to answer your questions and further explain how this password management service can be customized to boost efficiency and security at your business. 

 

Related Posts: 

Should You Move Your Business to the Cloud? Part 1

How to Train Your Entire Team in Cybersecurity

What Type of IT Support Is Best For Your Business?  

 

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About Pagoda Technologies IT services

Based in Santa Cruz, California, Pagoda Technologies provides trusted IT support to businesses and IT departments throughout Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Bay Area and across the globe. To learn how Pagoda Technologies can help your business, email us at support@pagoda-tech.com to schedule a complimentary IT consultation.