Password Security for
Public Sector Organizations

Password Security for Public Sector Organizations
Whitepaper

How to securely
manage passwords

Passwords are often stored using insecure methods
at all levels of government. Though it may seem
harmless to keep passwords in a notepad file, Excel
spreadsheet, email or even stored in a browser, noneof these methods are secure. Passwords protect
confidential records, network access and sensitive
accounts – and password security is critical for every
government employee.
This means that the password used for each andevery account should be unique and complex. Systemadministrators should have access to view thepassword health of the organization, without seeing
the actual passwords. A password manager should
provide an enterprise-level risk assessment showing
which employees are using weak or reused passwords.
Administrators should also have the ability to enforce
complex password requirements.
Password security doesn’t have to come at the expenseof adoption. A password manager eliminates theneed to remember dozens of passwords by providing
a secure vault for each user to generate and store all
their passwords. Users can autofill login credentials on
websites and applications, on any device.

Some common ways credentials get stolen are throughphishing attacks and public data breaches. Though all
employees should be trained on phishing email scams,
phishing emails are becoming more sophisticated
all the time. Even if an employee clicks a malicious
link, a password manager can differentiate between
a fake website and a real one, mitigating the riskthat employees reveal their login credentials. Somepassword managers can also send IT administrators
notifications if an employee’s login credentials appear
in a data breach so they can prompt the employee tochange their passwords.

of breaches involve the humanelement - with the majority due
to stolen or weak passwords,
credentials and secrets.

© 2024 Keeper Security, Inc.

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Password Security for Public Sector Organizations
Whitepaper

Government compliance and reporting
Government agencies must be in compliance with several security frameworks, including ITAR, SOC2, GDPR andISO 27001. On the state level, cloud computing solutions must be StateRAMP Authorized. And on the federal level,in addition to utilizing FedRAMP Authorized cloud computing providers, agencies are mandated to adopt a zerotrust security architecture by September 2024.
With today’s distributed, remote workforce, auditing access control policies is more important than ever. A
password manager can streamline compliance monitoring and reporting by giving IT administrators full visibility
and control over employee password usage and role-based, zero-trust network access throughout their dataenvironments. Additional reporting features may include delegated administration, enforcement policies, event
tracking and monitoring with customizable audit logs and event reporting.

© 2024 Keeper Security, Inc.

5Password Security for Public Sector Organizations
Whitepaper

Keeper Security
Government Cloud for thePublic Sector
Keeper Security Government Cloud (KSGC) password
manager and privileged access manager is FedRAMP
Authorized and StateRAMP Authorized. KSGC
maintains the Keeper Security zero-trust security
framework alongside a zero-knowledge security
architecture, so users have complete knowledge,
management and control over credentials andencryption keys.
• afeguard against ransomware attacks
S
Mitigate risks that lead to breaches by providing
real-time protection and access to applications,systems, secrets and IT resources.

• ave money and time with quick set-up
S
Easy, fast and affordable to integrate and deploy
for organizations, departments and agencies ofany size.

• owerful security insights
P
Provide analytics into credential security andhygiene across all endpoints and systems with native
SIEM integrations.

• obust compliance and reportingR
Simplify and strengthen auditing and compliancewith support for RBAC, 2FA, FIPS 140-2 encryption,HIPAA, FINRA, SOC, ITAR and more.

Public sector organizations need a way to protect
privileged accounts that is highly secure, easy todeploy and cost effective. Keeper’s zero-trust andzero-knowledge Privileged Access Management (PAM)
solution protects organizations of all sizes - from small
municipalities and institutions to large state agencies
and college campuses.

Ready to learn more? Contact us.

keepersecurity.com | sales@keepersecurity.com© 2022 Keeper Security, Inc.
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© 2024 Keeper Security,6Inc.