How does your company do "Enterprise" Password Management?

Question

We've talked about personal password management here but how do you guys manage your passwords at a company wide level?

Solution 1

We have managed to plan our company applications so they are mainly web based and open source or in-house developed. This then allowed us to use LDAP to hook into active directory for logging into our intranet. From there we modified the logins into various products we use (MediaWiki, Wordpress, SugarCRM etc.) so that if the user is authenticated in the intranet, they are automatically logged into these other products as well.

This has taken some time setting up the process and creating a script to set all the appropriate user details in each system when someone joins the company, however now we have a situation where everyone only has to remember one password, removing the need for managing a growing list of passwords.

Obviously this may not be viable in many companies, but now that we have it setup it was worth the effort.

Solution 2

I thought I'd report back after my week of searching...

I've settled on PassPack I've been using it for a few days now for my personal passwords and I'm a total fanboy.

They use the Host-Proof Hosting pattern so the only one that can access your stuff is you and if you forget your password they can't help you.

They have some nice Offline apps written with Adobe AIR and Google Gears.

But, best of all, they fit my "enterprise" requirement because an upcoming release will support sharing within a trusted group.

Plus, I learned about The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks in their forum.

Solution 3

We maintain an in-house Lotus Notes database that stores absolutely everything from passwords to server change records. It is big, cumbersome, takes an age to load, and is generally not, uh, nice.

No, this is not a sane way to do it. :-|

Solution 4

We use Password Agent: http://www.moonsoftware.com/pwagent.asp

It stores everything from PC admin logins to website logins and product keys for products we all use.

Solution 5

We use Active Directory to store user credentials, and developed custom library for Desktop and Web

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Comments

[Calvin]

I'm also looking for a good password management system, but I can't trust a site that won't let me see their privacy policy or terms of service. I went as far as creating a packing key, but when it asked me to confirm that I've read and agreed to their terms of service/privacy policy, I tried clicking on the link. Each time it just logged me out and sent me to their login page. So either their programmers are incompetent, or the company has something to hide. I won't agree to a contract that I can't read, and I would advise others not to either.

[Aaron Hoffman]

This is more of a "password architecture" solution, than password management. This does not solve the need to share individual passwords for applications between two users (which can not always be solved the "correct" way. ex: for App DB accounts, Admin accounts, etc.)

[coreyward]

It looks like @Calvin's concerns have since been addressed.

[qrtLs]

Could you elaborate on the personal security model? Put the passwords.txt into a veracrypt volume?

[Greg Hewgill]

@ItsmeJulian: I use KeePass (and other compatible programs such as MacPass) for personal passwords.

[qrtLs]

is there a measure on how to trust the sourcecode, especially guis are errorprone?

[wst]

Looks like it's Windows only. Big disadvantage for me.