A business password manager, set up for your whole team.
The bank password is in an Excel file. Everyone knows it, nobody mentions it.
Short answer
A business password manager is an encrypted vault in which a team keeps and shares all its passwords. Each employee remembers one master password, and the vault creates and fills in the rest. Shared logins, such as the bank's or a supplier portal's, sit in a shared folder with rights per person. Jevana sets up the vault, with Bitwarden for example, and arranges what happens when someone leaves.
Before and after
| Situation | Without a vault | With a vault |
|---|---|---|
| The bank password | In a spreadsheet or on a note | In a shared folder, only for those who need it |
| Creating a new account | The same password as always, with an exclamation mark on the end | A random password nobody has to know |
| A colleague leaves | Hoping he has not written anything down | Access withdrawn, and a list of what he could see |
| A password leaks | You notice when it is too late | The vault warns you and you change that one |
What we set up
The structure
- A personal vault for everyone's own logins
- Shared folders per department or subject
- Rights per folder: use only, or also view and edit
The security
- Two-step verification on the vault itself, required
- Emergency access for management, recorded
- Signing in through the existing work account, where possible
The use
- The browser extension, installed on every laptop
- The app on the phone
- A short explanation to the team, and help with the move
Where it falls apart in practice
The technology is simple. The moving over is the work: a hundred passwords that sit in browsers, notebooks and heads have to go into the vault once. If you leave that to everyone themselves, after a month you have an empty vault and the same spreadsheet.
So we do it in rounds. First the company's shared logins, together with whoever manages them. Then, per employee, the most important ones, with the import from the browser. The spreadsheet only goes once the bank, the accounts and the suppliers are in and everyone has worked with it for a week.
Questions
Why a password manager for the whole team?
Because reused and shared passwords are the most common way in for attackers. With a vault, every account has its own random password that nobody has to remember. Shared logins sit in one place, with a view of who can reach them. And when someone leaves, you withdraw access in one action instead of guessing what they knew.
What happens when someone leaves?
The employee's account in the vault is switched off, so they lose access to all shared passwords at once. The vault shows which logins they could see. You change those, starting with the bank and email. Their personal vault with work logins you hand over to a colleague or manager, so nothing is lost.
Is it not risky to keep all passwords in one place?
The risk is smaller than that of the alternative. The vault is encrypted with the master password, which the provider itself does not know, and protected with a second step. An attacker therefore needs both. Set against that is the current situation at many companies: one password used in twenty places and kept in an unencrypted file.
Which password manager do you use?
We like to work with Bitwarden, because the software is open source, independently audited and can run either at the provider or on a server of your own. If your organisation already uses another vault, we set that up properly. The brand matters less than the whole team using it and the second step being switched on.
Goes well with
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Cybersecurity for SMEs
The measures that stop most attacks, in an order a small business can follow.
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Microsoft 365 security
Two-step verification, conditional access and Defender: what is in your licence, switched on and checked.
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IT for freelancers
Mail on your own domain, a backup and a laptop you can replace without losing a week.
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IT management
Workstations, network, servers and licences looked after by two people, for a fixed monthly fee.
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Vaultwarden
A password vault for your team, in an environment of your own that we keep up to date.
From the knowledge base
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What do you do with an account, mailbox and laptop when an employee leaves?
What to sort out when someone leaves: access closed, mail redirected, files handed over, laptop returned and licence cancelled.
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A colleague clicked a phishing link: what do you do now?
Someone clicked or typed in their password. What to do straight away, what to check afterwards and when you have to report it.
Tell us what you run.
An introduction costs nothing. You talk straight away to one of the two people who will actually do the work.
or email info@jevana.systems