I often hear things on here about products that claim to be secure but aren't -- what password manager is considered reliable and secure? Which do you use?
Thank you!
1Password isn't perfect but is by far the best one I've used and it does work well for teams IMO. We just are anal about setting up vaults and permissions to those vaults so it easy to segment users to only see the services they are allowed to etc. Plus it keeps things orderly and clean for maintenance purposes. The browser plug-ins have gotten better and the search is decent so definitely better then others I have seen.
Is single sign-on an option, instead? Something like Okta is a much better experience for less technical users (and, well, engineers too) where possible, and also lets you trivially manage credentials access as people on/off board (no need to rotate credentials if you're worried folk may have written them down on paper somewhere with malicious intent). That said, it doesn't help folk with personal credentials management, which can be useful for good security policy in addition.
1password is my favorite to have around for services that don't support SSO. I like it so much I pay for a family account, even.
I would never trust my passwords to a closed source project that could be ridden with insecure code and disappear or change considerably on short notice. When the source code is open, chances for survival of the project in one form or another is much higher.
I also like that they take feature requests on their community forum and that their Github repo is active and responsive to issues.
I've used both in both personal and corporate settings. Great browser support, Keepass2Android makes my mobile experience good.
The reason it's so good for corporate is that the database is just a file, so you can email passwords, or share via one drive or Dropbox or ftp or shared samba drive or ...
I worked with techs from Oracle who used to auto generate the database for particular users and share them around. It worked really well for them. Because it's just a file it works for all sorts of workflows.
My workplace does pay for Cyberark which is a built for purpose Enterprise application, but I don't have rights to it it or whatever, so I just use KeepassXC.
BitWarden is my choice, it's cheaper than alternatives, the UI is simple and easy to understand. It's open-source and battle-tested. You may want to self-host as well.
KeepassXC can work fine, but it's not super integrated in terms of alternative clients, CLI, mobile etc. If you go with keepass, make sure to use XC (the most recent community fork AFAIK). Similarly to GNU Pass, you need to sort out syncing yourself and have the additional hassle of maintaining a shared secret, and alternatively a shared keyfile. If one is compromised, you need to make everyone rotate, which in practice leads to lazy teams never rotating keys and even using keys they know probably are compromised already.
LastPass is horrible, in my experience. The web app is incredibly buggy and the only thing that really works somewhat well is the browser extension, which I don't trust much.
1password is a slight step up from LastPass.
I heard great things about BitWarden and it looks compelling but haven't tried it yet.
Hashicorp Vault is great, but IMO not suitable for "manual" credentials and more for provisioning and maintaining secrets that are fetched by your internal services. If you need non-engineers to have access to it for shared web app accounts etc, Vault is probably not a good choice.
I haven't use the 2FA option yet, and it has a Google Authenticator equivalent.
Security wise, we looked at the 1Password CVE history[1] and it seems pretty ok.
The one issue we've run into with 1Password vs LastPass is that sharing works differently. If you share a password (not by putting it in a Vault) with an individual in 1Password, it makes a copy - so updates don't propagate. Thankfully we are a pretty small and tight team so adding people to other department Vaults isn't necessarily an issue, but it could be for others.
(And if podcasts aren't your thing - note that that page is text, and the episodes it links all have full transcripts.)
We didn't talk a lot about what's different for corporate users, but we do cover family/shared accounts. There's also two particular things I want to call your attention to:
- You probably should use a browser extension, because it's your most effective defense against phishing. A human might not notice the difference between a legit domain name and a phishing site, and might copy/paste a password into the wrong one. A browser extension will notice that you're not on the usual site and won't offer to fill in the password automatically.
- Getting browser extensions right is hard, and some leading password managers have been much better than others.
Personal use is free, with an optional $10 per YEAR (not per month) addon that adds a built-in TOTP client (ie. Google Authenticator compatible two-factor auth). There are also "Organization" accounts at extra cost for more enterprise-level usage, including sharing credentials among teams.
Note: I believe that even if you host on-premise using the open source code, it expects a paid license for the extra features (TOTP and Organization accounts), at $3-5/month per user.
I found 1Password 7, 1Password X and the browser extension to all be disconnected from each other and sloppy to use in general.
I used 1password before my company did, it works fairly seamlessly with both my personal and company accounts.
I see BitWarden mentioned a lot in r/sysadmin, but I haven't really tried it. Might be worth looking at.
Okta, Azure AD, and other identity services offer password sign-in from a custom dashboard you setup. It would be cheap to test out. That way you just grant access to the dashboard and can change the password easily without worrying about whether it replicated to the vault of a user. Also, the sign-in experience is slick, but may need a browser extension.
I've heard BitWarden is good, but I'd be really careful about how you manage hosting for any central password manager. 1password and the like handle the maintenance for you and can scale up to a lot of users.
If you are using enterprise SaaS, or the services are owned by your company, then you should strongly consider SSO. This will save you a lot of headaches, but you'll also need to think about user provisioning/deprovisioning because blocking sign-in might not be enough in all cases. Products like Azure AD and Okta handle this stuff for you too.
Example scenario: a bad SaaS product will have unlimited lifetimes on mobile tokens for convenience. If you assume the user only uses the web version and enable SSO, then you aren't mitigating the problem with the mobile app. You need to deprovision the user to purge the tokens from the app they installed on their personal device.
We are also now starting to use Okta and SSO extensively too.
My employer uses 1Password. I don't like it at all. Maybe it's because I don't understand how it thinks vs say BW, but should a PW manager require that much thought?
With or without Docker?
Encountered any surprises?
Thanks in advance!
Also: LastPass has been a very awkward fit for my org.
RememBear is made by the company that runs TunnelBear, which is a performant, permissive and reasonably transparent VPN platform. I have not tried RememBear but I would start there due to my positive experience with TunnelBear.
Schneier's thoughts on case studies from 2014 (https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/09/security_of_p...) and 2019 (https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/02/on_the_securi...). The comments are useful too. Also there's this SO answer: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/45170/how-safe-...
You can store the database (encrypted of course) in a Dropbox account that it can connect to. The desktop version can also periodically store backups locally on any device you want. If you treat the Dropbox as the centralized master, every one of your employees can simply use either the Windows desktop app or just keep a browser tab open with it (like I do at work). Any changes anyone makes will instantly be reflected across all instances.
I've never tried using for more than my 3 devices, but I don't see why it wouldn't work seamlessly.
I definetely wouldn't mind if my employer choose 1Password Business as I would be able to link my binusnees account to my family account and not pay for the latter. It is possible this might help changing behaviour for those who currently don't use a password manager for personal use. Or it might not help at all, who knows...
Just something you could take into consideration if this is important to you.
(Last time I checked 1Password offers this kind of deal and Dashlane, Lastpass either don't offer it or don't promote it. I won't guarantee this is the current state of things...)
Team Password Manager. https://teampasswordmanager.com/ Self hosted. LDAP/AD auth, and LDAP groups. It has some extensive auditing logs, so management can see exactly who changed what and when. Custom fields, pretty good permissions system. Concepts of "projects" rather than folders can be counter-intuitive. Cheap, and support is also pretty cheap. Worth a look just to evaluate to see if it will fit with your corporate culture.
Bitwarden. Fantastic software. I haven't used the corporate integration side of it at all. I protect mine with a U2F hardware key. Highly recommended.
I also am curious that you have a 4:1 ratio of services to employees. I've only seen that many services at enterprise-scale companies. I'm sure you have your reasons, but every IT department I've ever been a part of would be actively looking to reduce that number by finding more robust solutions that solve multiple problems instead of 100 different solutions.
It's open source and can be self-hosted if needed.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/saas...
The cool thing is that you can host your own server is you want with their open source solutions. I have no experience doing that either, but it sounds nice to have the option.
LastPass UI is a nightmare last I tried it a couple years ago.
LastPass is 2nd place.
Personally I used LastPass for years. Then switched to 1password. I am definitely a 1password fan at this point.
Tried other managers, they are all significantly worse.
It works well, and we do Active Directory SSO too. Same for our System Manager product.
Now I'm a spoiled child without it, got used too much to this worryless passwords management
cloud/saas: keeper security
Both have very good enterprise features and are predominantly focused on keeping control over shared credentials compliant.
Very happy with passbolt so far for those "very secret" credentials that could be exposed by an adversary on 3rd party services.
As others have mentioned, bitwarden is excellent also and has the advantage of built-in 2fa and other things.
For everyone outside of the startup bubble, Active Directory is king of SSO. We have it in hybrid mode with on site DC's synced to Azure AD. Now everyone is logged into Office, they have onedrive for files and Teams for messaging/conferencing.
When I evaluate a service it needs to connect to AD or I often feel like we're better off without it....
its pretty clunky but works well enough i guess.
personally i use bitwarden.
For web browsing, passwords often protect the site not me (magazine logins...). One wants a manager to stay open during browsing sessions, so one doesn't have to type the master password for every single use.
For financial transactions, one wants zero risk of someone cracking your financial security because they enjoyed thirty seconds physical access while you stepped away from your desk.
(Be reasonable: No one is going to set up a proximity monitor that locks their screen if they lean back in their chair, any more than they'll rig a trip wire shotgun to protect their data. Don't propose a version of this. I want convenience, so secure data needs extreme protection, not my browser during thirty second gaps.)
I've begged 1Password for years to allow certain passwords to be marked "secure" invoking all obvious measures: A second password needed to unlock, immediately locks again after use. No dice. They've tried offering a few alternatives that are so inconvenient that using a second manager is frankly easier.
Remember how Steve Jobs made his fortune: the iPod assumed people were stupid. The flat file system was corrected in the first year of the Mac, but reintroduced for the iPod for "ease of use". Similarly, I honestly don't believe that password managers are foremost concerned with security. They're concerned with sales.
Dashlane is no better, but it's a second system that I prefer for financial passwords.