Security champion spotlight: How this events pro revamped security by bringing Bitwarden to work
Oliver Needham discovered Bitwarden in 2021 when searching for an alternative to his existing password manager solution. He has since been a integral part of implementing Bitwarden in his company, Storm Events.
- Bronnen
- Security champion spotlight: How this events pro revamped security by bringing Bitwarden to work
Name: Oliver Needham
Bitwarden customer since: 2021
Location: Peterborough, UK
Industry: Events services
Bitwarden seats managed: 40
Table of Contents
Bitwarden at home
Password management challenges at work
Recommending Bitwarden for Storm Events
Enhanced password security and streamlined onboarding at Storm Events
Recommend Bitwarden to your workplace
Oliver Needham discovered Bitwarden in 2021 when searching for an alternative to his existing password manager solution. "I saw someone else was using Bitwarden," said Needham, "and it being open source and cost effective was appealing."
After testing it out, Needham discovered that the Bitwarden cross-platform functionality solved an ongoing challenge he had when sharing passwords with his wife. "I'm an Android user, my wife is an iPhone user. She was storing all her usernames and passwords in iCloud. We needed somewhere we could both access them."
By storing their shared passwords in Bitwarden, Needham and his wife were able to tackle everyday projects easily. "When we needed to log in to pay the water bill or something like that, we could use Bitwarden."
Needham and his partner also leveraged Bitwarden integrated authenticator, which generates time-based codes for two-factor authentication (2FA). "We could keep one-time passcodes in the same place rather than having to use too many different apps," said Needham, making it easy for his family to stay secure.
As a virtual events administrator at Storm Events in Peterborough, UK, Oliver Needham saw a need for Bitwarden outside his personal life.
Storm Events was storing their passwords in solutions not designed for password management, making it difficult to manage, update, and track changes. “We were storing passwords in Monday.com and a spreadsheet. It was a terrible way to use it,” said Needham. “When people would update passwords, you wouldn't know that it was updated.”
Storm Events required access to many different Zoom accounts for their clients, and this system of password management wasn’t cutting it. “I was really struggling,” Needham recalls.
The digital events company desperately needed a way to track password history and manage employee access to critical passwords.
When Storm Events added a password best practices module to their information security training program, Needham saw an opportunity to adopt Bitwarden at the organization. Needham reached out to his colleagues and said, “I use [Bitwarden] every day in my personal life. Can we just try it?”
After sharing more information on how easy Bitwarden is to use and its robust data protection like GDPR and zero-knowledge encryption, Bitwarden was the clear choice over other solutions in the market, like Dashlane and 1Password. Needham’s glowing reviews and personal experience also made Bitwarden more appealing to Storm Events. “The company hadn't heard of Bitwarden. They were talking about Dashlane and 1Password,” said Needham, but he pushed back, “Yeah, but I've used this, and I know it works.”
The Storm Events team started with a proof-of-concept to test Bitwarden, and Needham says there weren't any objections once colleagues got into the product. “We brought in other people that maybe hadn't used a password manager before. When they said it was really easy to use, I knew it was the right product,” said Needham.
Demonstrating initiative
By proactively suggesting and implementing a solution that boosted overall workplace security, Needham showcased his leadership skills. “Introducing Bitwarden cemented that I'm the person who will try new things and get it done,” said Needham
He took initiative by identifying an organization-wide challenge that was hindering their productivity, and presenting a solution. Needham recounts, “I found this pain point and said, ‘Hey, can we try this?’ It has easily been one of the best things I've done at the company, and I'm very proud of our implementation!”
Solving password management challenges with Bitwarden
“There was quite a lot of buy-in early on from lots of different people, which made it a lot easier to get other people on board later,” said Needham.
Since deployment, Storm Events has solved multiple password management-related challenges across the organization. “It now means we don't have the same password for shared accounts,” said Needham, “we're able to rotate them easily on platforms that require it, and now when anyone asks for a password, they usually check Bitwarden first.”
Streamlined access management
With Bitwarden, Storm Events can now easily and safely share passwords across teams and employees via collections, ensuring only those who need them are granted access. Collections are the primary method for grouping items and managing access permissions in Bitwarden. Needham emphasized, “Collections are really useful to segment everything. We can see who has access to these usernames and passwords as well.”
In combination with user groups, collections have also made it easy for Storm Events to onboard new employees and assign access to key logins. “As soon as we've got a new member that comes on, they’ll go into these particular groups, and then they’ll have 90% of what they need access to,” said Needham. “I don't have to worry that they’ve got what they need.” Storm Events has doubled its number of employees since Needham was hired, so this onboarding flow was crucial for scaling quickly.
Password history grants visibility into changes
One of the key challenges Storm Events wanted to address with their password management solution was automatically tracking password updates and changes. With password history logs built into Bitwarden, Needham explained, “Storm Events can now see that someone changed the password at a certain date. We get much more of a story of our accounts than we did when using other [password management] methods.”
Bitwarden empowers the Storm Events team to track down who made the password changes and why, ensuring reliable password management visibility across the organization.
Replace reused passwords with strong alternatives
Storm Events leverages Bitwarden vault health reports to identify reused passwords across the organization. Said Needham, “We, as an organization, were reusing passwords across multiple Zoom accounts. It'd be the same password each time.” Now with Bitwarden, Storm Events has replaced those Zoom passwords with strong, randomly generated passwords, protecting Zoom accounts from unauthorized access and enhancing resistance to brute force attacks. “We immediately increased the security of those passwords,” said Needham, “so everything, all the passwords, got better.”
Enhanced trust with external clients
Storm Events works closely with third-party clients, vendors, and suppliers who sometimes require additional security checks before engaging in business. With Bitwarden, Needham and his team have made this process easier than ever before. “Other organizations [will ask us], do you use Password Manager?” said Needham. Storm Events can now say, “Yes! Bitwarden!”
Bitwarden security information and third-party audits are easy to find and share, which not only saves Needham time but reflects well on Storm Events’ internal security. “I get a lot of confidence in being able to say, ‘We've got this area secure,’ and being able to do that well,” boasts Needham.
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