Introduction
As your MSP business grows, so do the complexities of managing security across multiple clients. Scaling your operations requires more than just adding new staff — it also means ensuring that your credential management systems can handle the increased demand.
Human error, like credential mismanagement, is involved in 68% of cyber attacks, according to Verizon’s 2024 DBIR report. As the gatekeeper of all sensitive data for your clients, all it takes is one slip-up across your client portfolio to put all of your users at risk. Securely managing client passwords is crucial to protect against data breaches and identity theft, ensuring that sensitive IT assets remain safe.
This article is your guide to leveling up your MSP’s password management as you acquire new customers. Here’s what we’ll tackle:
The unique password management challenges that come with growth
Why automation is crucial for effective credential management
How to maintain compliance and security standards as you expand
Strategies for juggling access across multiple client systems
Future-proofing your credential management approach
Through this article, you’ll gain a plan for fortifying your MSP’s identity management strategy.
Whether you handle a hundred clients or thousands, you’ll learn how to keep their systems locked down tight — all while positioning your business for sustainable growth. Robust security measures not only protect customer data but also enhance client satisfaction by creating trust and reliability in your services.
Why Growth Introduces New Password Management Challenges
Weak password practices significantly increase the risk of data breaches, making it essential to implement strong identity management and security measures. But the more clients you manage, the more difficult it becomes to enforce complex password protection across your portfolio.
What worked for you on a small scale with a handful of clients can quickly break down as you scale. Let’s break down why growth complicates things.
Inconsistency in Applying Credential Management Best Practices
With each new client, you’re adding layers of complexity to your credential management. Different systems, tools, and security protocols for each client mean more passwords to juggle and rotate. This complexity often leads to inconsistent security practices.
You might find some credentials overlooked, others poorly managed, or worse — reused across clients. Using a secure vault to store and manage credentials can significantly enhance data protection and ensure that all sensitive information is kept safe and centralized.
Increased Risk of Security Incidents
Growth puts a target on your back. Cybercriminals target MSPs because you’re the gatekeepers to sensitive client data. Manual password handling or outdated systems are like leaving your front door wide open. Every weak password, poor rotation practice, or lost credential is an opportunity for attackers.
Sharing admin credentials internally is a common practice for many MSPs, however the more staff with access to critical systems, the higher the chance of a security slip-up.
The Importance of Automation in Credential Management
Manually managing credentials as your MSP grows is not just inefficient — it’s dangerous.
Password managers can automate credential management, providing centralized password storage and ease of use, which enhances security and efficiency for businesses. When you take steps to automate credential management, you:
Ensure passwords are rotated and updated consistently
Only ever give employees the right level of access for their role
Limit the potential for human error that can put a client at risk
Apply multi-factor authentication (MFA) best practices at scale
Manual password management is time-consuming, error-prone, and unscalable. While automated solutions were once sub-par, there are a variety of ways to streamline outdated manual workflows.
Tools to Help Automate Password Management at Scale
As your client base expands, you need the right tools in your arsenal. Look for identity management systems designed specifically for MSPs. These often include features like automated password rotation, centralized credential storage in an encrypted vault, and multi-factor authentication integration.
These tools don’t just automate repetitive tasks; they grow with you. As your client list expands, the system can handle more platforms without adding complexity. It’s like having a security team that scales automatically with your business.
Identity and access management solutions built specifically for MSPs provide a number of benefits over traditional manual workflows, including:
More Time for Strategic Work: Shift resources away from manual password updates toward more valuable work like threat detection and proactive threat prevention.
Better Client Experiences: Resolve client issues faster and provide great peace of mind for business users who want protection without headaches.
Efficient Admin Controls: Give IT administrators more centralized control over credential management while also giving them more secure ways to share sensitive information internally.
Ensuring Compliance and Security Standards
As your MSP grows, so do the regulatory and security expectations. Larger clients, especially those in regulated industries like healthcare or finance, come with stringent compliance requirements.
End-to-end encryption plays a crucial role in maintaining compliance and security by protecting sensitive information during transmission and ensuring that messages and passwords are safe from unauthorized access.
Compliance for Larger Clients
Working with bigger, global clients often means dealing with regulations like HIPAA or GDPR. These regulations have specific requirements for how sensitive data should be accessed, stored, and protected. A compliance slip-up can cost you more than just a client. It can result in hefty fines and a damaged reputation.
To stay compliant, managed service providers must ensure that their credential management systems are secure and that access to sensitive data is tightly controlled. This includes regular password rotations, secure updates of access credentials, and strict control over who can access critical systems.
Auditing and Reporting
One key aspect of regulatory compliance is maintaining a clear audit trail. Automated credential management systems are crucial here. They log every credential update, password rotation, and access attempt, making this information easily retrievable during an audit.
These audit logs aren't just for satisfying regulators; they're also great for spotting security anomalies before they become full-blown incidents. In larger MSP environments, trying to track these changes manually is like trying to count grains of sand on a beach.
Best Practices for Compliance and Secure Vault Management
Meeting compliance standards requires more than just automating credential management. There are several best practices that MSPs should implement to ensure full regulatory compliance, especially as they grow:
Multi-Factor Authorization (MFA): Implement MFA across all client systems. This adds an additional layer of security beyond passwords, ensuring that only authorized users gain access, even if credentials are compromised.
Strong Password Policies: Enforce strict password requirements, including a minimum length, complexity, and regular rotation. A strong master password, paired with two-factor authentication, is crucial for securely accessing all stored passwords within an encrypted vault and mitigating risks associated with password breaches.
Regular Access Reviews: Conduct periodic reviews of who has access to what systems, removing unnecessary permissions and ensuring that only those who need access have it.
Privileged Access Management (PAM): Limit access to sensitive systems to only the most necessary personnel using PAM. This ensures that even if credentials are compromised, the potential attack surfaces a threat actor can exploit are limited.
By following these practices and using automation to enforce them, you can maintain compliance while scaling your operations securely.
See how Evo integrates MFA, PAM, and automated credential management for seamless compliance.
3 Keys to Managing Access Across Multiple Clients
As your MSP takes on more clients, the password manager you started with may not be equipped to offer the access controls you and your techs need. Here’s how to keep everything under control:
1. Centralizing Access Control
Managing credentials across multiple platforms and clients without a centralized approach is a recipe for chaos. It increases the risk of security gaps and makes it harder to track who has access to what.
By centralizing access control, you can manage all client credentials from a single platform, standardize password policies, automate password rotations, and track access across all client environments in real-time. This approach not only streamlines operations but also strengthens security by reducing the chance of credentials slipping through the cracks.
2. Scaling PAM and MFA
PAM helps restrict access to high-level systems, ensuring only authorized personnel can access critical client environments. This is especially important in environments where sharing admin credentials among staff is common practice.
With PAM, you can assign specific privileges to each user, limit access to what's strictly necessary, and log and audit privileged access for accountability.
3. Avoiding Credential Sprawl
One of the biggest security risks for growing MSPs is credential sprawl: the uncontrolled proliferation of credentials across various platforms and systems. Before you know it, you've lost control.
To avoid credential sprawl, consolidate access control under a single management system. This allows for better visibility into where credentials are stored, who has access, and how often they are updated. Consolidating credentials also reduces the number of entry points for attackers, thereby improving overall security posture.
DOWNLOAD: Why MSPs Need to Enforce Least Privilege for End Users Guide
Preparing for Future Growth: Planning Your Credential Management Strategy
Planning for growth in credential management is like building a house — you need a solid foundation that can support future expansions.
By laying the groundwork now, you’ll ensure your MSP can handle the increasing demands of credential management while maintaining both security and operational efficiency. Effective management of online accounts is crucial to prevent breaches and ensure smooth operations. Here’s how to set yourself up for success:
Scaling with Your MSP
Growth is inevitable for successful MSPs, but it comes with challenges – especially when it comes to managing credentials for multiple clients. As your client base expands, the sheer volume of passwords and access points multiplies.
What may have been manageable with twenty or thirty clients quickly becomes overwhelming as you scale. Without scalable credential management systems in place, you risk losing control over who has access to what, leading to increased security vulnerabilities.
To effectively scale your credential management strategy, implement tools designed to grow with your business. Look for solutions offering centralized access management, password rotation, and MFA. Choose systems that provide visibility into your entire network, allowing you to manage all credentials from one dashboard. As you grow, ensure your system remains flexible and capable of adapting to the unique needs of each new client without sacrificing security or efficiency.
Adopting Long-Term Solutions
While short-term fixes like manual password updates or basic password rotation tools might work in the beginning, they quickly become inadequate as your MSP grows. Instead of relying on patchwork solutions, invest in long-term password management tools designed to handle your current and future needs.
Look for solutions that incorporate advanced features like automated credential management, PAM, and integration with MFA. These features not only help secure client systems but also reduce the workload on your IT staff, allowing them to focus on more critical tasks rather than manually managing credentials.
Long-term solutions are built with growth in mind, allowing you to scale your operations while maintaining security best practices. Additionally, these systems can provide detailed audit logs, helping you remain compliant with industry regulations as your client base expands.
Training Your Team
Even the most sophisticated credential management system will fall short without proper training. As your MSP grows and adopts new tools, it's critical that your IT and administrative teams are trained to use these systems effectively.
Your team should be well-versed in the latest credential management best practices, including how to handle privileged access, secure password rotation techniques, and implementing and managing MFA.
Regular training sessions ensure that your team is not only familiar with the tools but also understands how to respond to potential security threats, manage credential updates efficiently, and maintain compliance with industry regulations. A well-trained team can make all the difference in keeping your operations secure as you scale.
Furthermore, as MSPs grow, so do the complexities of onboarding new employees. Ensure that new hires are quickly brought up to speed on your credential management protocols to maintain consistency and security across your organization. This might include comprehensive onboarding programs focused on security practices, regular refresher courses for all staff, and simulated security scenarios to test and reinforce best practices.
Remember, preparing for future growth isn't just about having the right tools — it's about creating a holistic strategy that combines technology, processes, and people. With the right approach to credential management, your MSP will be well-positioned to scale securely and efficiently, no matter how big your client list grows.
Start Down the Path of Modern MSP Password Management
Growing pains in identity management are real, but they're not insurmountable. Automation is your secret weapon, streamlining processes and reducing human error. Compliance is also a critical component of your scaling strategy, especially when dealing with larger clients in regulated industries.
We've seen how centralizing access control and implementing Privileged Access Management can transform chaos into order. We've stressed the importance of planning for the future and adopting long-term solutions that grow with your business.
By embracing these strategies, you're not just managing passwords; you're building a fortress around your clients' sensitive data. You're positioning your MSP to scale securely, maintain compliance, and focus on what really matters — growing your business and serving your clients.
Remember, in the world of MSPs, robust password management is about trust. And trust is the currency that will fuel your growth for years to come.
Learn more about Evo’s purpose-built identity and privileged access solution for MSPs
