ActiSoft Technology - Blog #ComplianceActiSoft Technology - Blog #Compliancehttps://www.actisofttechnology.com/blogs/tag/complianceWed, 22 Apr 2026 17:18:39 +0200http://zoho.com/sites/<![CDATA[7 Reasons Why You Need a Password Manager]]>https://www.actisofttechnology.com/blogs/post/7-reasons-why-you-need-a-password-managerResearchers attribute 80% of all breaches to weak passwords. These seemingly innocuous combinations—birthdays, pet names, or “12345”—become gateways f ]]>

Researchers attribute 80% of all breaches to weak passwords. These seemingly innocuous combinations—birthdays, pet names, or “12345”—become gateways for cybercriminals. They exploit lists of commonly used passwords and employ simple hacking tools to guess their way into accounts. Imagine someone getting rich by cracking passwords and draining bank accounts.


Monitoring your employees' password habits can be a daunting task without a password management solution in place. A business password manager grants organisations full control and oversight of their employees' password behaviours. The process of onboarding and offboarding employees is also streamlined. Continue reading to discover the functions of a password manager and how it can advantage your organisation.

What Is a Business Password Manager?

A business password manager is a tool that enables you and your employees to track, store, share, protect, and manage all passwords. Passwords are kept in a secure, cloud-based digital vault, accessible only with a master password. This vault can also store more than passwords, including documents, identity cards, and SSH keys, thus streamlining the security of your employees' files and passwords. Additionally, a password manager facilitates the creation of strong, unique passwords for each account, securely storing them.

Password managers play a vital role in maintaining the security of your organisation and simplifying the management of your employees' passwords. They also negate the need for employees to submit help desk tickets for password resets.

Benefits of Having a Password Manager For Your Organisation

Unsure of how a password manager can benefit your organisation? Consider these six advantages of deploying a business password management solution.

1. Enforce Organisation Password Policies Efficiently

Centralising password management within a single platform enables organisations to standardise and implement password security policies throughout the organisation. This includes setting a minimum password length and mandating the use of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for every compatible site.

Employing a password manager permits IT administrators to verify compliance with organisational password policies among all employees.

2. Visibility Into Password Practices

Without centralised password management, IT administrators lack insight into employees' password habits. This issue of visibility is increasingly critical with the rise of remote work. It will prevent your employees reusing the same password across various sites and applications. Password managers offer a centralised console that grants administrators full visibility into employees' password practices, regardless of whether they are working in the office, remotely, or using a hybrid approach. Don’t worry the IT administrators cannot see the passwords in a user’s vault.

3. Securely Share Passwords 

In businesses, password sharing is essential and crucial for task completion, yet it's imperative that employees have a secure method to share these passwords with their team. A password manager serves this purpose effectively. It enables organisations to establish shared folders for various groups such as individual departments or project teams. Moreover, users can securely share credentials with designated individuals, with the added convenience of automatic credential transfer to the recipient's vault.

Furthermore, our offering of Keeper's password manager provides the option to dictate whether the recipient of shared credentials or folders has the permission to edit or merely view the shared items.

4. Implement Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Employees should be granted only the system access necessary for their job functions, nothing more, this is the Principle of Least Privilege. This not only aids in preventing insider attacks but also reduces organisational risk if an employee's account is compromised. Adopting a standardised password management solution allows organisations to enforce Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and keep track of account activities for any unusual behaviour that might suggest misuse or a security breach.

5. Dark Web Monitoring

Cybercriminals often target Software as a Service (SaaS) developers and other vendors, aiming to steal credentials from their clients' employees. It may take months for an organisation to detect a breach, and usually, the victims of these third-party breaches are the last to realise they've been compromised. Meanwhile, cybercriminals might have already sold the stolen login credentials on the dark web.

BreachWatch, a widely-used extension for Keeper's password manager included in our Enterprise offering, monitors dark web forums and alerts organisations in real-time if any employee passwords or credentials appear online. It integrates smoothly with the Keeper password management platform, allowing IT administrators to promptly enforce password resets.

6. Simplified employee onboarding and offboarding

The use of a uniform password manager streamlines the onboarding process for new hires, facilitating a smooth transition even when the team is partially or fully remote. IT administrators can efficiently prepare new employees for work within minutes by either manually registering each one via the admin console or enrolling multiple users simultaneously using Keeper's supported methods. New employees are welcomed with a personalised email invitation containing a link to set up their Keeper Vault.

Former employees retaining active passwords pose a significant cyber risk, and securing passwords during the offboarding process is vital to an organisation's cybersecurity infrastructure. Upon an employee's departure, their system access must be revoked without delay. Password managers not only enable IT administrators to promptly withdraw access from ex-employees but also offer the option to conceal passwords for current employees within the platform. This measure prevents the copying of passwords through screenshots or written notes and facilitates the secure handover of accounts to successors.

7. Helpdesk Tickets

It is estimated that 40% of help desk calls/tickets pertain to password resets, each costing the business approximately £60. Envision a scenario where a multitude of employees are synchronised on a 90-day password renewal cycle; the impact on productivity could be substantial.

IT support teams can be targeted with social engineering attacks aimed at password resets, they typically rely on static data to confirm an employee's identity, a password manager such as Keeper mitigates that risk.

Consider the potential accomplishments of your support team with a decrease in password reset calls/tickets!

Choosing Keeper as Your Organisation’s Password Manager

Keeper's Enterprise password management solution offers all the essential features required in a password manager, plus many additional benefits. The Keeper password manager operates on a zero trust and zero knowledge basis, ensuring that only the end user can access the plain-text data in their Keeper vault—Keeper's employees included.

With Keeper for Business, every employee receives Keeper across an unlimited number of devices, ensuring comprehensive protection throughout the company. Moreover, it includes a complimentary family plan for every employee.

Contact our friendly Cyber Security specialists at Actisoft today to find out how Keeper Password Manager can help you improve your security posture and protect your users and organisation.

Get Started Now!
]]>Sun, 02 Jun 2024 12:42:22 +0000<![CDATA[Managing Compliance]]>https://www.actisofttechnology.com/blogs/post/managing-complianceWho loves that time of year when you have to start the audit for your Compliance Standard? How many people do you hear say, “Great, let’s do this!” or ]]>

Do you have challenging compliance requirements, not enough time to get audits done and keeping up with risk assessments is a continuous problem?

Who loves that time of year when you have to start the audit for your Compliance Standard? How many people do you hear say, “Great, let’s do this!” or “I’ve been so looking forward to this!”? Imagine the reaction if you have multiple Compliance Standards such as Lexcel, Cyber Essentials, ISO 27001 & GDPR!


I bet it isn’t many, if any at all! Why is that?

In most businesses there isn’t someone employed full-time to run and manage your Compliance Audit. It can be a time consuming and tedious task. 


You must get information from other departments that have other objectives to achieve and can be disinterested in the whole process. They have to try and remember what they did to complete the same request the previous year, this all fills your inbox with an almost endless stream of emails. 

Emails chasing for information, getting responses abdicating the required work to someone else, emails clarifying what is required, follow-up requests and the list goes on…

How does your constant chasing of colleagues go down with them, do they hide from you or pick up a phone and look busy when they see you coming?

The chasing of the vendors that you have sent 50-page generic compliance questionnaires to that bears little resemblance to the services that they provide to your business because you don’t have the time to tier and personalise them. Having received many of these over the years I know the groans that they cause. 


I can remember receiving one questionnaire from a large global enterprise that was many pages long and our answer to their 100+ questions was N/A, not a productive exercise for either party.


Do you send questionnaires out to your stationery vendor that contain a question asking if they carry the necessary insurance for working at height on-site? Do you send your SaaS vendor one that contains COSHH questions? 

Then you must enter the details into a myriad of complicated spreadsheets! The same spreadsheets you must manually keep up to date when compliance standards get updated or changed. I won’t even mention the disjointed collection of data! And once you have it all you have to present it to the auditor from all sorts of repositories.


Sound familiar so far?

All in all, it can become a very inefficient and costly exercise that doesn’t do a lot for morale.


Imagine if you had more than one Compliance Standard to manage! You may end up with different tools being used across multiple departments which does not aid in the company Management knowing where each one is in the journey.

Can you easily provide your boss or board with the status of your compliance process, what tasks are done, outstanding, overdue, identify any bottlenecks, what is the risk status and so much more or do you have to put in several hours/days in before they want a status update?


Is there a solution? Yes, there is.


KCM GRC (KnowBe4 Compliance Manager Governance, Risk & Compliance)

How does it take away the headache?


It is a SaaS platform that pulls all the tasks into one system. Allowing you to;


· Manage and Automate Compliance and Audit Cycles

Reduce the time you need to satisfy requirements to meet compliance goals with pre-built requirements templates for the most widely used regulations.

· Centralise Policy Distribution and Tracking

Save time when you manage distribution of policies and track attestation through campaigns.

· Identify, Respond, and Monitor Your Risk

Simplify risk initiatives with an easy-to-use wizard with risk workflow based on the well-recognised NIST 800-30.

· Efficiently Manage Third-Party Vendor Risk

Easily pre-qualify, assess, and conduct remediation to continually monitor and keep track of your vendors’ risk requirements.


You can link control tasks across multiple Compliance Standards to remove duplication of effort.


Audits can easily be done remotely decreasing the time taken to complete. You can also, easily and comprehensively, update your stakeholders where you are in the compliance life-cycle highlighting any bottle-necks and resource requirements.


The KCM GRC platform is offered in different packages to meet the needs of all organisations and is available with the following modules to choose from:


• Compliance Management

• Policy Management

• Risk Management

• Vendor Risk Management


It has 80+ Templates that are managed and maintained by KnowBe4, examples are Lexcel, Cyber Essentials, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, FCA Handbook and of course GDPR along with many others. For a full list Click Here


If you want to reverse the current sentiment and hear your team sincerely say, “Great, let’s do this!” or “I’ve been so looking forward to this!” visit our Product Web-page and Book a Demo to see how you can complete your audits in half the time at half the cost!


We look forward to starting to help you enjoy your audits! 


"Let's do this!"      



Actisoft Technology offers a Compliance Management software solution, please see our product page – Compliance Manager. We also offer Cyber Security Services and Products, including Security Awareness Training, to ensure that you can Work Securely, Everywhere, Everytime. This works whether you are in an office, from home and even the local coffee shop. Talk to us about how we can partner to ensure that your business is secure from current, new and emerging threats.

Book a Demo
]]>Tue, 14 Jul 2020 10:56:18 +0000<![CDATA[An Overview of Business Reasons to Achieve a Compliance Standard]]>https://www.actisofttechnology.com/blogs/post/an-overview-of-business-reasons-to-achieve-a-compliance-standardOne of the biggest reasons to achieve a compliance standard is to win and retain business, setting yourself apart from the competition by showing that ]]>

Compliance Brings Benefits

One of the biggest reasons to achieve a compliance standard is to win and retain business, setting yourself apart from the competition by showing that you have met a level of quality/security, as an example.


It can be a requirement for obtaining Government or Public body contracts or allow you to at least bid for them. A lot of Government contracts stipulate that you need to have Cyber Essentials.


Let’s briefly look at the potential benefits of achieving the Lexcel Standard which is the Law Society’s legal practice mark.


•Increased retention rates of clients due to a superior customer service experience,
•As an organisation you will have a more effective risk management process which will result in fewer complaints,
•It will provide you with a competitive advantage,
•Having the Lexcel Standard of Compliance can help you to stand out from competitors during a bidding process,
•Increased profitability and efficiency,
•Access lower insurance premiums and receive favourable treatment from insurers.


The benefits can be the same for any Compliance Standard that you achieve especially Industry specific ones.


Some Compliance Standards have to be achieved for some business operations such as PCI DSS Compliance which means you can process and handle credit card transactions and their associated data. With more card transactions happening due to the COVID19 Pandemic have you achieved this Compliance Standard? It is not a one-off exercise it has to be managed and ensured that compliance is being met all the time, if you are not compliant you can lose the ability to process credit card transactions, what impact would that have on your business?


FCA Compliance is a Statutory requirement for organisations that operate within Financial Services so maintenance of this is second nature as they must have it to operate within that sector.


Remember that all the above Compliance standards are over and above your requirement to be GDPR compliant! That can mean a lot of time spent on managing compliance.


No compliance standard is a one-off exercise, it’s a continual process. Inevitably, it can get added as an additional responsibility to someone’s ever-growing workload which means the management of the compliance standard can become all-consuming, impacting productivity and efficiency as well as increasing costs. Achieving a Compliance Standard is something you should enter into with eyes wide open.
Be aware of and control your risk
A lot of standards have the same controls to be implemented and because the standard covers different business areas or units you can have multiple people duplicating tasks instead of in tandem, together as a team. As an example, you may end up with the person who is responsible for business insurance being tasked twice or more with providing copies of insurance policies therefore duplicating the task and effort for them. This can happen in any size of business. This decreases the efficiency and productivity of all involved and can make compliance seen as a negative task as opposed to the positive task that it is with the benefits it brings.


Creating a Compliance/Security culture within your organisation will make it become second nature so removing any negative outlook from the process is important to success, take people along the journey, dragging them doesn’t work so well!


Achieving a Compliance Standard can be costly both in time and money, but the benefits can outweigh those costs if you are able to manage the process efficiently and continually as opposed to a last minute panic!


Keeping key stakeholders updated with progress is a key factor for several reasons, to ensure that any required resources are made available and they can be your champion in making any necessary business process changes, these are a small example. 


Meeting, and exceeding, Compliance Standards adds value to your organisation if not viewed and treated as a chore. 


Actisoft Technology offers a Compliance Management software solution, please see our product page – Compliance Manager. We also offer Cyber Security Services and Products, including Security Awareness Training, to ensure that you can Work Securely, Everywhere, Everytime. This works whether you are in an office, from home and even the local coffee shop. Talk to us about how we can partner to ensure that your business is secure from current, new and emerging threats.
Get Started Now
]]>Fri, 03 Jul 2020 08:02:37 +0000