In many ways, a password manager is a game-changing technology, regardless of your discipline. Many define password manager as a property of access control of multiple accounts and yet remaining as an independent software system. Essentially it is a single-key-to–the-castle approach toward authentication and access to your computer or network.
With a password manager, a user logs-in once and gains access to all systems without being prompted to log-in again as they can navigate throughout the network. The easiest way to describe password manager to someone who has little to no technical knowledge, is to compare it to person traveling to Europe with a passport that has been approved for entry. Once they pass customs and are accepted into the European Union, they can travel throughout the EU without needing to use their passport again. One access allows you entry everywhere.
For those of us who remember traveling throughout Europe before the EU, you can understand what a pain this was. You essentially needed to keep your passport with you at all times.
The same pain point is applicable to network authentication before a password manager. Users were required to remember several passwords. They wasted many hours trying to log into different systems whilst administrators wasted their time unlocking and renewing passwords.
Many password manager solutions typically accomplish this simple task of one-time authentication by using the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and stored LDAP databases on servers. A simple version of Single Sign-On can be also achieved using cookies, but only if the sites are on the same domain.
In the past, users would have to log-out of countless windows as they navigated across networks. Now with password managers, all you need to do is log out of one account and you’re done.
Top benefits of password manager:
Happier workers:
Users spend less time on the phone, do not get locked out, and generally have fewer password issues. This equals a happier workforce that spends more time working and less time waiting in a help desk line.
Reduce help desk costs and improve forecasting:
As we just mentioned above, password manager means admins spend less time working on password management and more time working on the network making sure users are happy. This also means they can forecast time and costs more efficiently and with a greater degree of certainty.
Stronger Passwords:
Since all your users have to remember is one password, companies can make that password, stronger, longer and trickier for hackers to uncover.
Makes it easier for Business to work with Businesses:
The networks of most companies are becoming intertwined with each other. They work together to produce the effects of a modern, global and digital world where the “consumerization” of goods and services creates a single experience for users whether they’re ordering a new work computer on their company’s ITSM solution, or buying a gift online for a loved one. All this can be attributed in some small part to the effects of password manager. The ability for single and centralized authentication helped facilitate this modern mercantilism, and in some small way, helped to change the way to do business forever. It has become a phenomena.
This Blog was brought to you by Hypersocket and its CEO, Lee David Painter. With over 20 years of industry experience as a pioneer in IT Security, Lee developed the world’s first OpenSource browser-based SSL VPN (SSL-Explorer). Today Lee runs Hypersocket, a leader in virtual private network technology.
