West Coast media institution selects Bitwarden for ease of deployment and active directory integration

Founded: 1953

Industry: Nonprofit news media

Employees: 500

Size of IT team: 14

Location: West Coast

Bitwarden Seats: 85

This media organization reports on local, national, and international news and produces TV, radio, digital media, and educational programming. Headquartered on the West Coast, the organization found its security posture upended when its legacy password management solution was breached. The organization was keen to find a new password management solution that would protect sensitive information and enable it to continue its mission of bringing original, high-quality programming to its viewers. 

"We researched Bitwarden, 1Password, and Dashlane," said the Bitwarden customer. "As far as enterprise password management goes, 1Password and Dashlane weren’t cutting it because they weren’t as streamlined or as feature-rich as Bitwarden."

"During our evaluations, Bitwarden kept coming back on top. Specifically, we were happy with the Bitwarden enterprise features, active directory integration, and simple interface. The overall user experience, price point, and authentication capabilities were also important factors."

Recognizing user directories are a critical component of user access control, Bitwarden offers a Directory Connector app that automatically provisions users, groups, and group associations, making it easy for customers to provision, onboard, and manage their users. 

The customer found Bitwarden particularly appealing because of its seamless integration with Microsoft Active Directory – a directory service that stores information about the object on the network, making it easy for admins and users to find and use. Some of the information stored may include names, passwords, and other identifying information, such as phone numbers. 

"Active Directory is our central source of authentication. Anything that can leverage it is fantastic," said the customer. "The IT team loved that the Bitwarden interface was simple. With Bitwarden, there isn’t much busyness and you get what you need very quickly."

Ahead of onboarding new users to Bitwarden, the customer discovered that employees had been using Slack as a password repository and also saving passwords on spreadsheets. Eager to make the transition to Bitwarden, the IT team announced to employees they would need to create a Bitwarden account and set a deadline for cutting off access to LastPass enterprise. 

"We had little-to-no-problem with deployment," said the customer. "Since deploying Bitwarden, the time IT administrators spend onboarding/offboarding employees and managing password requests has decreased."

The customer was also quite pleased with the availability of Bitwarden Families plan, which is offered for free to all Bitwarden Enterprise users, empowering them to protect their personal information outside of work.

With the use of Bitwarden Collections, the organization has found it easier to organize groups of employees based on their areas of expertise and grant permissions based on an employee’s need for access. The customer has also observed that insecure password practices, such as the sharing of passwords via Slack, have abated over time. 

"We have seen progress," said the customer. "We also document educational security information heavily, sometimes pulling directly from the Bitwarden website, and send it to employees so they can better understand how to create strong passwords. These learning materials make it easier for employees to take advantage of Bitwarden."

The media organization is similarly pleased with the Bitwarden time-based one-time password (TOTP) function. 

"The TOTP function is really helpful because it is built right in. If we need a password immediately, we can quickly enable TOTP and don’t have to wait until someone is back from vacation or back in the office. We also do this in the event we’re concerned a password has been compromised."

"I love a lean interface. Bitwarden offers that. It has exactly what we need."