Wednesday, January 06, 2010

PURCHASE/SET UP A PASSWORD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM - ASAP

New Year's Resolution Recommendation: PURCHASE/SET UP A PASSWORD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM - ASAP -

I find that in many organizations, one key weak point is that the owner/management, does not have a centralized location for a critical asset in today's world - passwords and related

I recommend this solution for both business and personal use (after having a client pass away and the spouse did not have access to any of her passwords/account information).

There are so many products available, many of which are very good, secure, low-cost..etc. I currently use a product called 'Splashid' (www.splashid.com)- I use the web based version and backup the encrypted file to my system once a week. I am a big fan of secure web based solutions as opposed to solutions that reside on one computer with one person. Both have their risks, but, I believe the risk is lower with the web based (others may disagree). Other products - www.clipperz.com, www.passpack.com, www.keepass.com.

THIS IS CRITICAL to an organizations disaster recovery and sustainability.

I store all the web logins, bank account information, software passwords, software licensing information (for QuickBooks for instance), tax id's, credit card information, security questions...etc - seems like a dangerous thing to do, but, these sites are more secure than the little sticky sheet method :).

There will be instances where you might want to right something down, verbatim, that a technical person provides to you and then regurgitate to another tech person - the manager is useful for that. Although this website's master information should only be given to long-term, trusted individual(s) and as few people as possible. I do believe it is the kind of thing that a spouse should know about though, in the event of an emergency.

I have two accounts - one that I share with my husband and one for business.