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Password Managers aren’t a new technology. Arguably the Excel 97 spreadsheet in your corporate file share labelled DefinitelyNotPasswords.xls was an early form of Password Manager (but only if it was password-protected). The architecture behind them hasn’t really evolved much over the years, they’ve just moved away from being flat files of all your most coveted secrets, protected by yet another code word/phrase, into nicely presented applications, or cloud solutions that simply scramble your bucket of passwords with some fancy encryption algorithm.
There are different storage models, each with their own pros and cons. Storing the passwords locally means they aren’t sitting in the cloud on someone else’s infrastructure, but that also means if your device is compromised, those passwords could be compromised as well. Store the passwords in the cloud, and well, they’re in the cloud, on hardware you don’t own or manage, and what happens when you lose communication to that infrastructure? You might not be able to update your vault. What happens in case of a breach? Has all of your data been exposed? There are certainly examples of this happening, as well as vulnerabilities in local versions of various password managers.
Ultimately there is no silver bullet, no perfect solution that is going to be completely impervious to a code vulnerability, a hack, or poor infrastructure security. But still, having a properly organized password manager, regardless of which model you choose, is still better than not having one at all.
This week at Security Field Day 7, I was introduced to Keeper. I’d heard of them before but hadn’t really dug into their product very much as I had chosen and settled into a password manager quite a few years ago, and truthfully had no complaints, and no reason to look elsewhere. I’ve been a 1Password user for several years, and even brought 1Password to my employer where we’ve adopted the enterprise version.
What stood out the most for me with the presentation from Keeper was that it seemed to be the first password manager that was purpose built from the ground up to be an enterprise-grade security tool. Many of today’s popular subscription-based password managers, 1Password included, evolved from a free product, aimed at consumers. That doesn’t mean they’re not secure, but that features were developed with the consumer in mind first, not the enterprise. Some of the more enterprise-y features they might have now may seem to have been tacked on as an afterthought, or to simply check off a box that might get the product adopted into enterprise.
Zero-Knowledge and Zero-Trust
Keeper has taken security of customer data very seriously, as they should, however their discussion around encryption and their methods used to protect and store password and secret data was next level. Keeper has absolutely no knowledge of a user’s master password, or stored passwords/secrets, as the keys to encrypt and decrypt this data are only stored on the user’s device. The data in your vault isn’t protected with a single key pair either, every single record in the vault is encrypted with its own keys. Those keys are then wrapped in another key if contained in a shared folder.
Their credentials are solid, and they are the only FIPS 140-2 validated password manager that I am aware of.
If you’re really into the nerdy side of encryption, check out all the details here.
“Keeper is the most secure, certified, tested and audited password security platform in the world. We are the only SOC2 and ISO27001 certified password management solution in the industry and Privacy Shield Compliant with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s EU-U.S. Privacy Shield program, meeting the European Commission’s Directive on Data Protection.”
Authentication and 2FA
The list of features they support is exhaustive, from SSO support via SAML 2.0 with any identity provider you can think of, to biometric support that includes Windows Hello, TouchID, FaceID, and Android. Aall of these options feature their Zero Knowledge model that completely protects your information in flight during the authentication process.
Two-Factor Authentication enforcement is available, along with Role-Based Access Control. Keeper supports all popular 2FA methods with your authenticator of choice, including Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Duo, RSA, or FIDO2 keys like Yubikey. They even have their own integration with wearable technology like Apple Watch and Android Wear devices through KeeperDNA.
Even better, you can just use Keeper for all your 2FA codes and stop having to use 3-4 different apps for your TOTP/OTP supported logins.
Unfortunately, they also support SMS for 2FA, which I’d personally like to see more products completely remove as an option. This is likely my only complaint about Keeper but I understand it’s an option some people insist on using.
BreachWatch
With credential stuffing and spraying attacks on the rise, it is vital that passwords can be checked against known breached passwords. Keeper offers a feature called BreachWatch for checking vault information against known breached information on the Dark Web. You will be alerted to change a known breached password if there is a match.
Hard to Switch, but…
The list of features Keeper offers goes on. If you can think of it, they likely already have it, and if not, they’re working on it.
If you take your credential security seriously, you’re using a password manager, and 2FA wherever you can. Once you’ve gotten yourself into a particular product like this, it can be a daunting task to switch to a new one. I myself have over 1200 items in my 1Password vaults, and thus far I’ve had no compelling reason to think about migrating my secrets to another platform. Until now.
Keeper’s presentation at Security Field Day 7 truly has me considering signing up for a trial at the very least.
Check out their presentation over at Tech Field Day.