When you are completing your market research to identify the ideal password manager for your business, you will no doubt find yourself asking if each product is trustworthy. After all, if you are going to put your entire organizations’ passwords in a third-party vault, you need to be sure that the solution can be trusted.
Bitwarden ticks all of the boxes when it comes to security. It is a secure open-source password manager that operates under the zero-knowledge model. That means the source code is available to be tested by third party security experts and Bitwarden administrative and technical staff do not have any access to your password vaults, regardless of whether they are stored locally or in the Bitwarden Cloud.
256-bit AES encryption keeps your passwords safe in your Bitwarden password vault. This is the level of encryption employed by the vast majority of financial institutions worldwide.
Some of the the main security features provided by Bitwarden include two-factor authentication (2FA), a strong password generator, secure password sharing, password auditing and data breach and dark web monitoring.
- Password Generator: The Bitwarden password generator will allow you to automatically create strong, random, and unique passwords ranging from 5 to 128 characters in length. This is one of the easiest ways of preventing cybercriminals from gaining access to passwords using brute force tactics. Bitwarden passwords are created to include random strings of numbers, letters, and symbols, or passphrases can be set. You can configure this to meet your organization’s policy for password complexity.
- Password Auditing and Breach Monitoring: Bitwarden has a variety of password auditing tools. These include an audit of your passwords to see if they are weak, repeated across different platforms, used on unsecured websites, have inactive 2FA, or if they have already been exposed in data breaches.
- Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): If enabled, 2FA will mean that anyone trying to access your account(s) will be required to provide an additional piece of information, along with the password to complete the log-in process. This is a sure fire way of stopping cybercriminals from being able to infiltrate your accounts if they manage to steal your passwords. Bitwarden even goes one step further with Bitwarden Premium by scanning saved logins for 2FA compatibility and making a TOTP (temporary one-time password) authenticator available to users.
- Password Sharing: There are two options available for sharing passwords:
- (Send): Bitwarden has a sharing tool ‘Send’ that enables the sharing of files as big as 100MB. These can be passwords, notes, or other sensitive data. These files are shared by entering an email address of the intended recipient and then including the files you want them to have access to. Once sent, the file is hosted on Bitwarden’s secure servers at a uniquely generated send.bitwarden.com/ URL. Any individual you share the link with can access the Send. The recipient does not need to be a Bitwarden user. Access can be rescinded at any time.
- Organization: There is also the option of setting up a shared vault using the ‘Organization’ feature. Anyone can be invited to use this once allocated access or supplying the required log-in credentials. The free tier allows sharing with one person, but If you require more there is an upgrade option to the Families plan, which allows password sharing for as many as six users via an unlimited number of Organizations and Collections.
Conclusion
As you can see from the above features, you should have no worries in relation to trusting Bitwarden as a safe password manager. The security features, and sharing options, are second to none. The password manager will greatly improve password security, and since it is easy to use, it will be no problem for any employee to ensure they create strong, unique passwords to secure all their accounts. The solution also has a great free tier for individuals and small businesses, and the premium packages for individuals, families, and enterprises are extremely competitively priced.
