While you may know the major functionality of password management tools in general, you may not be privy to some of the game-changing features that have made EPM solutions so robust and helpful to companies everywhere.
Consider that along with the ability to manage access by roles and to offer secure password management and storage to numerous users in an enterprise-level network, there are other things that business owners have looked for and had to find elsewhere as needed, until EPM solutions took the helm. Now, the best EPM programs are those that offer the tools and features that you’d expect, as well as added bonuses that make the software more valuable than ever.
User Management Features
While you have the capability to grant and deny permissions to specific roles in most password management suites that handle multiple users, you might have found yourself forced to handle a manual onboarding process (or offboarding process) to ensure that your users directory was up to date. If not, then the access roles defined by you at another time would be only confined to a specific endpoint or even the whole network. With the increase of remote work and the need to handle things off-network, though, it makes more sense to have your users instantly and easily updated with access and roles that can inform their activity on and off the network. That capability lies with the ability to sync with a cloud directory. Luckily, there are EPM tools that offer Active Directory (AD) sync, meaning that they utilize Azure AD provisioning. Additionally, it’s equally important that identities of users are made consistent and easily manageable for the number of platforms, services, and apps that your users will encounter in their workday. SCIM, or The System for Cross-domain Identity Management, is a deployment specification that makes it easier to encode and transfer user data from place to place; this protocol makes it easier than ever for users to retain their identity and roles from platform to platform within a network’s specifications automatically, rather than having to manually identify a user in each specific instance.
Dark Web Monitoring
The philosophy that keeps you safest is the assumption that you’re never completely safe: in other words, it’s to be prepared and be on the lookout for a break in your defenses. This is proven and all the more true when it comes to cybersecurity, because although you can do all the right things to prevent poaching of sensitive data, it may still happen. That’s why many enterprise password management tools now offer the ability to look for that poached information in the so-called black market of data: the dark web. Dark web monitoring, as the name suggests, is how high-end EPM programs search and discover information that might have been stolen from you. When it does, it alerts you and steps in to mitigate risk of compromise, even recommending you to take action when necessary, like password changes and the like for sensitive accounts found to be so compromised on the dark web’s vast sensitive info market.
SSO and Hardware Security Module Integration
With every password management software comes the question: will it do the work for you? The best EPMs won’t force you to look up your encrypted, hidden passwords, but instead will allow you to use them just by being logged in to the EPM itself. This single sign-on (SSO) integration not only mitigates accidental mistypes and password transference, but it also makes things easier. But there’s more to integrations on EPM tools than SSO: they can also work in tandem with hardware security modules, or HSMs. HSM devices are designed to act the way a physical key does, as a trusted link between you and the doors you plan to open on your network. They manage encryption and decryption of login data, and they also create digital security certificates and other such protocols that make cryptographic processes that much more secure. The best EPMs are suited to integrate with these devices in addition to other security login options, or to even complement them.
Vault Versatility
There’s one thing that everyone knows and requires of a password management tool above all else, consumer and business alike: the storage of passwords. This central feature isn’t all there is to storage in today’s EPM software, though. Nowadays, users can utilize specialized, encrypted “vaults” in their EPM tool to not only passwords, but other sensitive information, including confidential documents, media files, and other codes, files, and processes that are meant to be highly protected. But that’s not all — vaults also come in different shapes and sizes, with some of the more advanced tools allowing vault storage on numerous, even unlimited, devices. There are vaults meant for business use, but some enterprise password management tools also allow users to switch between a business vault and a personal one, meaning that encrypted storage can help to protect every facet of a user’s life, not just their professional life.
Secured Sharing and Messaging
Sharing access isn’t the only major sharing activity that comes with an EPM solution. As an enterprise, sharing documents and folders based on role or team affiliation is an activity that occurs often — and that type of activity needs securing. The same is true of corporate communications, too. That’s why EPM solutions will even offer varying degrees of protection in this regard, be it an encrypted chat tool or the secure creation and dissemination of files and folders within the corporate body.
