Jeremy - I've not found a better solution than PGP. Perhaps more a formalized process for communicating password updates proactively is all you need. Ideally, distributing passwords at 3am is too late. In the past I've used small password database programs on a network share. You are then left with verbal or PGP encrypted communications to distribute a single new password to access the database versus distributing all of the changed passwords. If you're interested try http://www.anypassword.com There are others who read this list that prefer distributing passwords on paper. You can't hack into a piece of paper :) and if you have physical access to the paper then you most likely have physical access to the network equipment as well... McLean -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Jeremy Stinson Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 10:49 AM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Password Security and Distribution All, Our company is starting to grow rather quickly and we are starting to have growing pains. We are in the need for a better mechanism for sharing passwords between our engineers. Most of these passwords are for our client's systems where some of them are controlling the password schemes (aka requiring shared user accounts). We have a process in which we change passwords every X days but, distributing these passwords to everyone who needs them is starting to become a challenge. Also, handing off passwords to someone who is stepping in to help out at 3am securely is not easy. I have tried to do google searches but I have not been able to find a good way or process to do this. I am wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to handle this? In other companies we have used a PGP keyring to secure a text file that contained all of these passwords and then put them onto a shared customer portal. The problem with this strategy is what happens if you are not on your computer where PGP is installed? Any suggestions will be welcomed. Thanks in advance, Jeremy