Secret Server (originally from Thycotic, now from Delinea since the 2021 Thycotic merger with Centrify) is an enterprise password management application, which is available with either a cloud-based or on-premise deployment which emphasizes fast deployment, scalability, and simplicity.
N/A
Jamf Connect
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Jamf Connect is a Mac device authentication solution, that lets a user unbox their device, power it on and access all of their corporate applications and resources after signing on with a single set of cloud identity credentials.
I would recommend Delinea to any organization or colleague, as I have used it to support our shared services model, as well as a dedicated model for people support to customers, for privileged access management. Delinea has provided us with effective methods for handling unnecessary login attempts to the customer infrastructure. Additionally, the connection thread is available in the audit trail for review, which is a valuable feature to have.
Jamf Connect works particularly well in our lab environments where the central "source of truth" for student accounts is our Okta IdP. As Apple has recommended moving away from Active Directory binding (which was our previous source of truth for authentication) we needed a new central way to manage this function. Okta worked well for other services on campus, and it was a smooth integration to make it work with Jamf Connect for virtually all use cases on campus (we still have a couple of NAS/SAN systems that require Active Directory).
Password Management: Its entire purpose, really. Secret Server stores passwords in an incredibly easy to use way. They can be organized in groups, they contain all the information about the site or system the password is used for (including URLs for websites), and even a notes field. You can set up specific policies for expirations and complexity, and Secret Server can even generate strong passwords for you. Using a password is simple, too, since you can just click a button to add it to your clipboard; you don't even have to unmask the password.
Security: The passwords are stored encrypted in a SQL database, and the application requires an authenticated login. This could be local, but we tie it into Active Directory. Each folder of passwords has groups assigned (in our case, again, AD, but you can make them local groups) with different permission levels, so we can compartmentalize passwords. Desktop technicians don't have access to network switch passwords, etc.
Easy Setup: It took me about an hour to get the server running, from spinning up the VM to importing our old password list. It took a little longer to organize the passwords into proper folders, and then assigning groups, but it was easy to do.
Personal Passwords: Each user also gets a personal folder, where they can keep their own, unshared passwords. This is nice for sites or systems with individualized logins (e.g., a firewall, VPN, etc.)
Favorites: Secret Server lets you tag passwords as "favorites" so you can easily find ones you use constantly. The search feature is nice, but this is nicer.
It is almost a certainty that we will continue to use Jamf Connect, even with Apple coming out with Platform Single Sign On. Jamf Connect provides several features that PSSO does not, such as "just in time" local account creation and automatic synchronization of enterprise credentials. It is unlikely that we would investigate other options at this time or in the near future.
My rating is purely based on the configurational activities, as feature-wise delineation has all the features that are very beneficial for customers, though the implementation is a bit more manual work, which can be reduced with a low-code platform. Along with that, we can have a better UI to have intuitiveness and can manage the platform for shared customers in a better way. Overall, it is a very good tool for PAM.
Jamf Connect is quite easy to use and has the necessary options on the login screen (such as WiFi network connection) for getting connected and authenticated. It has a simple to use menulet that allows password changes and resets as well as temporary elevation, all with very clear workflows. It also allows us to assign field staff to their client users' computers so that they can provide support without having to resort to LAPS accounts.
There were not very many solutions that provided the entire package of taking an account from creation and deactivating it when no longer needed, as well as providing the discovery of unknown service accounts. Other solutions like RoboForm and LastPass did not offer the ability to manage your service accounts and added layers of complication to ensure security.
The only other product we evaluated was Xcreds from TwoCanoes software, which is essentially a one person shop. We already were Jamf Pro customers, and Jamf Connect fulfilled all of the requirements for this function along with providing professional customer support. Since we already had a relationship with Jamf, it made perfect sense to add this product to our toolkit, and keep technical support contained within one organization.
