It’s not often that we give out near-perfect scores in reviews, but Keeper impressed us enough to score 4.5 out of 5 in our Keeper password manager review. It’s hands down one of the best password managers out there today. We praised it for its zero-knowledge encryption technology, role-based access and password sharing, and simple password auditing.
We caught up with Naz Ekim, Keeper's Director of Global Marketing Communications, to learn more about what sets Keeper apart, what the company perceives as its biggest challenges today, and what the future holds for the password management industry in general.
Can you give us a brief overview of the company and what it does?
Keeper Security is privately held and was founded in 2011 by Darren Guccione (CEO and co-founder) and Craig Lurey (CTO and co-founder). It has four offices located in Chicago (headquarters), California (software development), Ireland (EMEA business sales), and the Philippines (international customer support), serving over one million customers worldwide.
Keeper is a market-leading, top-rated zero-knowledge security and encryption platform for preventing password-related data breaches and other cyber threats. Millions of consumers and thousands of businesses worldwide trust Keeper to mitigate the risk of password-related cyberattacks.
Keeper’s consumer-grade password manager stores all passwords in a secure digital web vault that users can easily access from any device, running any operating system, and with almost any browser. It auto-fills login credentials on all websites and apps, and users can easily protect their web vault with the MFA method of their choice.
Our business password security and encryption solutions provide IT administrators with complete visibility into employee password practices, allowing them to enforce company password policies, monitor employee compliance, and generate audit trails and reports.
Keeper also securely manages the lifecycle of privileged account credentials with role-based access control (RBAC) and controlled credential sharing. Further, businesses can choose to add single sign-on (SAML 2.0) authentication, automated team management, advanced two-factor authentication, (DUO & RSA), Active Directory and LDAP sync, SCIM and Azure AD provisioning, email auto-provisioning, command line provisioning, and developer APIs for password rotation and backend integration.
Our business solutions are easily scalable to meet the needs of any size organisation, from a small start-up to a multinational, and can integrate into any tech stack or data environment.
The future of work is already here. Now’s the time to secure it.
Robust security to protect and enable your business
Keeper also offers KeeperMSP, a product designed specifically for managed security providers (MSPs). KeeperMSP enables MSPs to solve their customers’ password management and security issues by offering them password management as a service.
With KeeperMSP, managed service providers can independently provision, manage, and monitor multiple customers from a central admin dashboard, with robust reporting and auditing tools to enforce security and compliance requirements such as RBAC, 2FA, SIEM event reporting, and regulatory and industry compliance.
What have been the biggest challenges, and how did you tackle them?
Our biggest challenge has always been educating the marketplace about the importance of password security, and how easy and inexpensive it is for both consumers and organisations to secure their passwords. Despite the criticality of password security to overall cybersecurity, passwords are frequently overlooked.
We continue to tackle this problem with educational outreach through our content channels, including our blog, webinars and fireside chats, and LinkedIn Live videos.
What impacts - both positive and negative - has the pandemic had on your business?
As a cloud-based company, Keeper was ready to work remotely when the lockdowns began. We didn’t miss a beat. The pandemic is an awful thing, but thankfully, it didn’t negatively impact our company. In fact, our business exploded as everyone rushed to enable remote work.
Are you taking advantage of the new world of blended and remote working? If so, how?
With so many organisations committing to remote or hybrid work moving forward, Keeper has incredible growth potential. We have a cloud-based password security solution that is easy for IT admins to deploy and manage, as well as being easy for end-users to use.
We’re taking full advantage of the new way of working by showing organisations how we can help them prevent password-related cyberattacks throughout their organisation, wherever their employees are working from.
What are your aims for the future?
We’re going to continue innovating in the password security space, including a new secrets manager product that’s currently in development. We’re also pushing hard into the public sector in the US, a push that’s being aided by the recent White House Executive Order mandating that federal agencies enable MFA.
How do you see the password manager sector changing in the next five to 10 years?
Despite all the talk of “passwordless authentication,” passwords are going to be around for the foreseeable future, although end users won’t see them as often.
By that, I mean more individuals and organisations will be using password security platforms like Keeper, and with all of their passwords stored in Keeper, end users won’t need to keep track of dozens or hundreds of passwords, nor will they need to enter them into sites and apps. Keeper does all of that for them.
I mentioned earlier that a lot of people still don’t realise how important password security is. In another decade, everyone will realise how important it is. Everyone will be using a password manager (hopefully Keeper!).
Further reading on password managers
Test your password strength with a selection of free tools; and if you've happened to lose important passwords, use the best password recovery tools to try and save the day. If you're set on buying a password manager for your company, make sure to peruse the best password managers for business before you sign up.
