Customer Case Study

Alzheimer’s AssociationBids Farewell to Excel forManaging Passwords
Spurred by the need to protect data using a highly secure ‘vault’-At a Glance
Association’s reach extends
internationally as well via its
interactive online message
boardsNational office in Chicago
houses IT staff that supports
all local chapters

Founded in 1980 to foster
education, support, and research
into a cure for Alzheimer’s
3,000 employees at local
chapters nationallyVoted by The NonProfit Times tolist of Best Nonprofits to Work forseven consecutive years

As the leading voluntary health organization in
Alzheimer’s care, the Alzheimer’s Association has
gone to the forefront of Alzheimer’s education andresearch funding since its inception 37 years ago.
Recently the Association moved to unify efforts
within its scores of formerly independent nationalchapters. In doing so, the IT staff at the Chicago
headquarters began supporting all 3,000 Association
workers, including all systems and applications
support.
Realizing that security overall would need a boost
as IT services were expanded, the IT team took
a close look at how it was handling password
management. Similar to a lot of organizations,passwordmanagement was almost a misnomer.
Essentially various passwords were kept on an Excel
spreadsheet. And while the spreadsheet was usuallystored in a safe place, the fact is that passwords wereoften shared among users via email, which is notalways secure.

Mariano Lopez leads IT team that
supports all virtual desktop activities
Challenge: To shore up security
around passwords that had
been “managed” using an Excel
spreadsheet, as the Association
initiated central support for all
previously independent local
chapters

Further, individual password “hygiene” among users
mirrored that at many if not most other organizations.
The same or nearly the same passwords were often
used for multiple sites and data access points, mainly
because remembering multiple passwords is just
cumbersome if not impossible. In fact, according to alandmark 2016 study from the Ponemon Institute, 60%of employees use the same password for everything.
Small wonder that another study from Verizon foundthat nearly two-thirds (63%) of confirmed data
breaches involve weak, default, or stolen passwords.

Filling the Need for Secure
Password ManagementIt became increasingly aware of better ways to store
and manage passwords, and using an Excel spreadsheet
wasn’t one of them. Furthermore, the IT department
wanted a solution that would leverage the increasinguse of mobile solutions by Association employees.
So the Alzheimer’s Association took action.
© 2019 Keeper Security, Inc.

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Customer Case Study

Fortunately, Mariano Lopez, systems administrator in theIT team, had been using a personal password manager
for his own use, one offered free from Keeper Security.
He found that the solution made it very easy to manage
all of his many passwords, while offering the protectionof these passwords in its highly secure digital vault.
So opting for the business version of Keeper Security
Password Manager and Secure Digital Vault was aneasy decision.
Lopez said that, as much as anything, he wanted apassword management system that is easy to deploy,easy to use, and bulletproof when it comes to password
security. The initial deployment of the solution to ahalf-dozen IT workers was just that—smooth and easy.
Once the Keeper solution had been in use for a while,
Lopez starting exploring other capabilities and waspleased to find a free plug-in available on the Keeper
site that made it easy to create groups or “teams” thatroutinely share passwords. Only instead of doing sousing unsecure emails, this vital task is
now accomplished securely.

Meanwhile, the problem of having to remember or record
dozens of different, complex passwords is left to theKeeper solution. Plus, the solution also generates thesecomplex, strong passwords, which are safely stored in
Keeper’s Secure Digital Vault.
Looking ahead, Lopez says that other departments in
the Association may well benefit from an expansion of
the Keeper solution, such as human resources or legal.
In addition to the many advantages of the solution,such departments would benefit from an administrator
knowing that passwords in use are very strong, but nothaving visibility into what the passwords are, assuring
password compliance in audits.
“Keeper is just a great product and I’ve been very happy
with it,” Lopez says. “There is no trouble at all getting
others to use it.”

A Feature-Rich Solution
In addition, Lopez appreciates the user-friendly
dashboard through which he or another administrator
can check to see just how strong or weak the passwords
in use are. Only the individuals who created them know
the actual passwords. This feature can allow for ongoingeducation about the value of strong passwords, and theimportance of changing them frequently.

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+46 8 403 049 28REV 6.18.19 © 2019 Keeper Security, Inc.

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