Friday, October 21, 2011

10 Must Have Password Management Software Features

By Mark Sandford


The importance of adopting mature password management practices is well understood across the IT industry, yet some organizations are still to commit time and effort in maturing in this area. One of the contributing factors delaying the adoption is functional requirements are not always clear when the evaluation process for Password Management Software begins.

As an aid to choosing your own private Password Management Software program, please utilize the following functionality as being a guide.

Multiple User Password Sharing Probably the most essential elements of Password Management is ensuring all employees who work on exactly the same IT systems can effectively share the passwords utilized to secure IT systems. An enabler for teams of people sharing passwords is the platform on which it is run on. Because of its nature of multi user sharing, an internet based platform for discussing passwords is among the most suitable and flexible choice, and definitely the simplest platform to set up improvements on.

Traceability As people start to share passwords, its important you know which users are making changes to which IT systems. Not only is this required for regulatory compliance in some countries, but it's important a full audit trail is maintained so any issues which may arise can be discussed with the individuals who made the change. As passwords are added, updated and deleted from the system, information about the change, the person who made the change and details of which computer the change was made from should be recorded.

Historical Password Records It isn't uncommon for password details to be updated inside the password management software, then again not updated effectively across all IT systems in which the passwords can be applied to. This can lead to devices starting to be inaccessible to people, or prevent devices managers from signing on to key business programs or servers. If this were to happen, it's vitally important you can evaluate formerly recorded security passwords for these systems, so you can revert back to the password value if necessary.

Granular and Flexible Permissions Only a few IT professionals require same level of admission to password records as each other. Some users would require management rights, some might only need to have modify rights, and a few users only have to be capable of read the password records without the capability to make any changes. Similarly when administering passwords management system - you may want various delegation models for who can make certain system wide modifications. Be sure to think about this type of flexibility when picking your password management software.

Promote the utilization of Powerful Passwords How frequently do users use security passwords that happen to be memorialize easily, or utilize the same security password across multiple techniques - unfortunately it takes place often. Passwords management software should be able to instruct your users the way to use powerful and complicated passwords. It needs to supply a password generator so your users don't need to think of complex passwords, and there should be no reason behind them to try and recall the passwords as you have a competent system to help them to save them in.

Multiple Authentication Options Not every company has the same requirement for authenticating against their IT systems. Your password management software should provide multiple authentication options such as integrated Windows Authentication, forms based authentication or some form of randomized pin number versus alphanumeric scramble pad option. As an additional option, some form of two-factor authentication would also be desirable such as RSA Tokens or Crypto Cards.

Secured from Unauthorized Accessibility One very important consideration that's usually overlooked when choosing password management software program is how secure will it be. Can users write their own personal code to get into password information they've got no approval to examine? Or can the database professionals see the passwords in the database or grant on their own access by manipulating data in the data bank? You must keep your analysis criteria contains assessing how secure the perfect solution is is.

Password Reset Reminders One aspect of mature password management practices is to renew passwords on a standard cycle. The aspects of such an action can be quite difficult and time consuming, and any enhancements in this subject can just increase the process. Ideally your password management software program will be able to remind your end users when passwords should really be reset. This reminder should either be visually on your computer screen, or via an automatic method such as email reminders.

Appropriate for Minor and major Enterprises Imagine how beneficial it could be to choose one Password Management Software program solution which can scale from small enterprises to large enterprises? The product will be able to grow along with you, and scale as required, without having to search for a different solution. Ideally you need to be qualified to choose a product which can be completely free in the beginning, and only charge a small fee when your enterprise expands bigger. The backend infrastructure it's placed on must also be prepared to scale at no supplemental cost.

Well timed and Superior Technical Support Buying a password management software technique is more than solely the application itself. It's truly essential your software vendor has a good track history of offering quality tech support on time, evident by the subscriber base happily acting as customer personal references if required. With your evaluation, make certain you send a test enquiry mail to the software dealer, and validate how quickly they reply to you.




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