Case Study - Global Language Platform Strengthens Password Sharing and Management with Bitwarden

DMM Eikaiwa operates across more than 120 countries globally with 10,000 teachers and ranked as the number one online English class provider in Japan. Outside of Japan, we operate under the brand names Engoo and Bibo.

As the IT administrator, I'm responsible for ensuring that all of our remote employees from locations around the world, including Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, and European countries, comply with our security policy and properly install and use software security solutions such as Bitwarden.

We handle the personal information of many individual customers and instructors, so we have strict security standards, including password management.

DMM Eikaiwa is not just a school, but a platform. Because our products are used by corporate clients and other English schools, we provide strict security measures for our major clients, and secure password management with Bitwarden is one of those.

As our business grows and our membership increases, our exposure to security risks go up. For this reason, we have focused over the past year on strengthening our security, including password management.

Before Bitwarden, we were using another password manager, but when they made changes to their plan we decided it was time to search for a new password manager that was effective both in price and functionality.

At the time, we were experiencing problems with unauthorized password sharing among employees without the knowledge of our IT department. As a result, one of the goals for a new password manager was to help us reduce such risk factors.

Bitwarden enables our IT and security departments to share passwords and manage access for their employees. This is the main reaason why we switched to Bitwarden a year ago.

Currently, all of the more than 250 full- and part-time employees use Bitwarden. Any employee with access to customer information is required to manage their passwords in Bitwarden.

In the past, there were occasions when employees would hand in sticky notes with passwords written on them. We eliminated that practice after conducting security training for all employees. Some used to write all their passwords in Excel or memorize 10 or 20 passwords, but now Bitwarden provides everyone in the company a way to easily and securely manage passwords. The Bitwarden policy for requiring two-factor authentication is also globally enforced and adds another layer of security.

When employees need to share passwords, they now do so through Bitwarden. This is more secure and the IT department can track the status of sharing. And, of course, there are no more weak and reused passwords.

People unfamiliar with password management software may initially reject it. But once they learn that taking five minutes to familiarize themselves with it can save them a large amount of time and effort in the rest of their lives, they all use it eagerly. That's why training employees and communicating the benefits of a password manager are so important.

Our IT department performs unannounced security checks. We do not directly see the passwords that our employees are using, but instead we ask them to show the Bitwarden password strength report to verify that the passwords they are using are strong enough and that they are not being used repeatedly.

What makes Bitwarden great for IT administrators is how easy it is to add or remove internal users. In our company, employees access as many as 200 different services through IDs and passwords. When an employee leaves the company, all IDs and passwords that the employee had access to can be instantly ascertained by IT. From there, we can easily delete or reset credentials.

With Bitarden, we no longer have to remember passwords and can use unique, strong passwords for different software and service accounts, which has dramatically increased security. We can access all our passwords at any time, whether at the office or at home, on any device or browser.

I personally use Bitwarden at home with my family. I have created a family collection and share necessary passwords among family members, knowing that everything is secure.