Password Manager

Without a password manager, most people reuse the same password, or minor variations of it, across many accounts because remembering dozens of unique complex passwords is impractical. A password manager solves this by generating a long, random, unique password for every account and storing them in a vault encrypted with strong cryptography, so the user only needs to remember one master password. Many password managers also include features such as breach monitoring, which alerts users if a stored password has appeared in a known data breach, and secure sharing for credentials that must be used by a team.

Password reuse is one of the most common reasons a single data breach at one company leads to account takeover at many others, since attackers systematically test stolen credentials against other popular services, a technique called credential stuffing. Organizations that mandate or provide a password manager significantly reduce this risk, since unique passwords mean a breach at one service cannot be used to compromise an employee's accounts elsewhere. Enterprise password managers also give IT teams visibility into weak or reused passwords across the organization, which is otherwise invisible.

Choosing a reputable password manager with strong encryption and a solid security track record matters more than choosing a specific brand, and the manager itself should always be protected with multi-factor authentication. Employees should be encouraged to let the tool generate passwords rather than creating their own, since human-created passwords are far more predictable than randomly generated ones. A password manager works best as part of a broader strategy that includes multi-factor authentication, since it protects against reuse and weak passwords but not against a user being tricked into typing a password directly into a phishing page.