Storing Personal Passwords in PAM360

In addition to enterprise passwords, PAM360 allows you to store personal passwords in the PAM360 repository. It is also possible to save personal details such as your personal email account information, credit card numbers, and other banking data, contact addresses, phone numbers. To store such sensitive personal data, PAM360 offers a private repository that only you can access, in the form of a Personal tab for each user role. The information stored in the Personal tab is encrypted independently and hidden from all other users, including the administrator; this is to ensure complete privacy and security of your data.

To activate your Personal tab, supply an encryption passphrase for data encryption. In case your organization has enforced password complexity rules in your environment, PAM360 will also ask you to enter a passphrase that matches the complexity requirements. Once you set up your passphrase, PAM360 encrypts all your personal passwords using this passphrase. By default, PAM360 does not store the encryption key anywhere in the PAM360 database. You must provide this passphrase to access your personal passwords every time. If you forget the passphrase, you cannot reset or recover it, leading to a loss of access to your personal passwords stored in PAM360.

At the end of this document, you will have learned the following:

1. Encrypting Personal Passwords
2. Storing Personal Accounts

   2.1 Web Accounts

   2.2 Banking Accounts

   2.3 Credit Card Accounts

   2.4 Personal Contacts

   2.5 Deleting Accounts

3. Adding Custom Fields

   3.1 Creating Custom Categories

   3.2 Managing Custom Categories

4. Managing Passwords in Bulk

   4.1 Importing Passwords

   4.2 Exporting Passwords

5. Reset Personal Passphrase

1. Encrypting Personal Passwords

To gain access to the Personal tab, you must provide an encryption passphrase. While using the Personal tab in PAM360 is optional, administrators can enforce creation of an encryption passphrase for all users from the General Settings. To set a strong password policy, go to Settings >> General Settings or navigate to Admin >> Resource Config >> Password Policies and customize password polices as per your requirement.

Follow the below steps to set an encryption passphrase for your Personal tab:

1. Navigate to the Personal tab.
2. Enter a complex passphrase. Click the tool-tip icon for the passphrase complexity rules.
3. Enter your passphrase again to confirm it and click Save.

PAM360 will use this passphrase to encrypt your data. Ensure that the passphrase you create is long and obeys the complexity rules for enhanced security. Whenever you need to access personal passwords in the Personal tab, you need to supply this passphrase. Remember, if you forget your passphrase, there is no way to retrieve your personal data.

If the administrator disables the option that allows user to choose their own passphrase for the personal passwords section, PAM360 provides options to choose an encryption method for securing the data stored in the Personal tab. Please note that all your personal passwords will be encrypted and stored in the database. PAM360 will encrypt your personal data based on the encryption key you choose to use based on the options given below:

Option 1: Use my encryption key and do not store it: If you choose this option, all your passwords will be encrypted using the encryption key you set up below. Note that this key will not be stored in the PAM360 database. To access your personal passwords you will have to supply this key every time and if you forget this key you will lose all your passwords. This is the recommended option for achieving a high level of security for your sensitive personal data. In choosing not to store the encryption key, the risk of it getting exposed and compromising your passwords is significantly low.

Option 2: Use my encryption key and store it: If you choose this option, all your passwords will be encrypted using the key you supply below and the key will be stored securely in the PAM360 database. During the subsequent password retrievals you need not specify the key and it is also not necessary that you remember this key.

Option 3: Use PAM360's encryption key: All your passwords will be encrypted with the same key as the enterprise passwords. You don't have to supply or remember any encryption keys.

Choose the required encryption method, enter your encryption passphrase and click Save to save the changes.

2. Storing Personal Accounts

Once you have set your passphrase, proceed with adding your personal accounts in the Personal tab in the default categories provided by PAM360. The default categories cannot be deleted. However there is also provision to add your own custom categories, which is discussed in the next section of the document.

The four default categories of accounts are:

1. Web accounts
2. Bank accounts
3. Credit card accounts
4. Personal contacts list.

2.1 Web Accounts

To add a new web account, follow the below steps:

1. Navigate to the Personal tab.
2. Click the Web Accounts option from the left pane.
3. In the Web Accounts page, click the Add Accounts.
4. In the Add Web Account pop-up that appears, enter the following attributes:
   1. Service Name: Enter the name of the web service.
   2. Service URL: Enter the URL.
      
   3. Login Name: Enter the login name of the web account.
   4. Password: Enter the password of the account. Also, choose a complexity from the drop-down list.
   5. TOTP Secret Key: If your web account is enabled with TOTP as the Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), input the TOTP Secret Key. This allows you further to directly access the account through the PAM360 interface, streamlining the generation of TOTP one-time codes alongside the added passwords.
      • By default, the website accounts configured with TOTP as the 2FA supports the SHA1 Algorithm, 6-digit TOTP codes, and a validity of 30 seconds. If your account supports a different set of parameters for TOTP codes, please select the appropriate TOTP Algorithm and TOTP Digits and enter the TOTP Validity in seconds by clicking upon the Settings dropdown beside the TOTP Secret Key field.
        
        

        Note that if the TOTP Algorithm, TOTP Digits, and TOTP validity differ between the account and the values entered here, the authentication mechanism will not work as expected due to generation of incorrect one-time codes. Also, once configured, the TOTP secret key cannot be retrieved again for the account. Therefore, exercise caution to ensure that the values entered or selected here match those values supported by the account.

   6. Tags: Enter keywords that can be used to search for the account in the Web Accounts page.
5. Click Save.

2.2 Banking Accounts

To add a new banking account, follow the below steps:

1. Navigate to the Personal tab.
2. Click the Banking option from the left pane.
3. In the Banking page, click Add Accounts.
4. In the Add Bank Account pop-up that appears, enter the attributes such as Bank name, Account number, Branch name, etc. Leave the unwanted fields blank.
5. Click Save.

2.3 Credit Card Accounts

To add a new credit card account, follow the below steps:

1. Navigate to the Personal tab.
2. Click the Credit Cards option from the left pane.
3. In the Credit Cards page, click the Add Accounts.
4. In the Add Credit Card Account pop-up that appears, enter the attributes such as Card name, Card Number, PIN, Phone number, etc. Leave the unwanted fields blank.
5. Click Save.

2.4 Personal Contacts

To add a new contact, follow the below steps:

1. Navigate to the Personal tab.
2. Click the Contacts option from the left pane.
3. In the Contacts page, click the Add Contact.
4. In the Add Contact pop-up, enter the attributes such as Contact name, Email Address, etc.
5. Click Save.

2.5 Deleting Accounts

To delete any of the accounts, go to the respective accounts page,

1. Navigate to the Personal tab.
2. Click a category of accounts from the left pane.
3. Select the required accounts using the check-boxes and click the Delete Accounts option at the top.
4. Click OK in the confirmation dialog box to complete the delete operation.

Note: Once you delete accounts, they will be deleted from the database once and for all and cannot be recovered.

3. Adding Custom Fields

In addition to the default categories, add any number of additional custom fields to your Personal tab to store other information. For instance, if you wish to store details about the properties owned by you, add a custom category named Properties.

3.1 Creating Custom Categories

Follow the steps below to add a custom field:

1. Click Add New Category from the left pane.
2. Enter a category name in the text field. Your custom fields can be in any of the following four formats - Character/List, Numeric, Password, Date. Add attributes such as column name, description, and default value.
3. You can add a maximum of nine Character/List fields, four Numeric fields, three Password fields, and four Date fields. Click Save to add the custom field as a new category next to the default ones. Remember, once added, custom fields cannot be deleted.

3.2 Managing Custom Categories

If any of the custom categories are no longer required, delete them in the Manage Categories page. Once you delete the categories, they will be deleted from the database once and for all. So, exercise care before deleting. You can also edit the custom categories.

To manage a custom category,

1. Go to the Personal tab.
2. Click the link Manage Categories present in the left side of the web-interface.
3. If you want to edit a custom category, click the Edit icon present against the required custom category.
4. If you want to delete a custom category, click the Delete icon present against the required custom category.

4. Managing Passwords in Bulk

Import and export passwords added to the Personal tab in bulk. Click here to view file samples and learn more about file formats supported for importing. The data from the imported file will autofill the fields matching the column names. You can also choose which field in the imported file should map to the attributes of the corresponding personal category.

4.1 Importing Passwords

Follow the below steps to import passwords:

1. Navigate to the Personal tab.
2. Click the Import Accounts option.
3. In the pop-up form that appears, choose the category.
4. Select the file type and file format.
5. Click Browse and select the file to import passwords.

6. Click Next and map the fields accordingly with the data available in the attached file.
   
7. Click Import to complete the import process.

4.2 Exporting Passwords

Export personal passwords in PDF or XLS format using the Export option.

1. Navigate to the Personal tab.
2. Click the Export icon () present in the top right corner.
3. Select PDF or XLS format based on your preference. The passwords are exported in a PDF or XLS file based on your selection and saved to your local machine.

5. Reset Personal Passphrase
(Reset personal passphrase feature is applicable from build 6000)

PAM360 allows you to reset the personal passphrase of the Personal tab. Do the steps that follow for the reset procedure:

1. Navigate to the Personal tab and click Forgot Personal Passphrase?.
2. In the pop-up that appears, enter a Reason for the passphrase reset and click Reset Passphrase.

3. Now, you have successfully reset the personal passphrase of the Personal tab.