14/09/2026
Where does your business store its passwords?
We recently identified a security risk for one of our customers that is surprisingly common: passwords being stored together in a document on a network drive.
We also see the same thing with Excel spreadsheets, Word documents and files stored in SharePoint or Teams.
It might seem convenient, especially if the folder is only accessible to staff, but it creates a significant security risk.
If an employee’s account is compromised and that account has access to the document, an attacker may suddenly have a list of credentials for other systems. One compromised account can quickly become a much bigger incident.
SharePoint and network drives are great places to store business documents. They’re not password managers.
A proper password manager securely stores credentials, controls who can access them and makes it much easier to use strong, unique passwords across your business.
For businesses that don’t want another system to manage themselves, Bitflo also provides a Managed Password Manager as part of our security services. We can help set it up properly, manage access and make sure passwords can be securely shared with the right people when needed.
It’s a simple thing worth checking in your own business:
Are there any Word documents, spreadsheets or text files sitting somewhere that contain passwords?
If the answer is yes, now is a good time to move them somewhere designed for the job.
