In this CPTV interview ahead of the 2026 MSP Summit, I interviewed Bitwarden channel account manager Tresca Rightsell about the best ways to secure passwords in an organization.
Bitwarden is an open-source password management vendor that helps MSPs secure their customers’ passwords in full-managed or co-managed accounts.
Rightsell spoke of a disgruntled developer who was dismissed from a channel partner’s customer and used his credentials to wipe out the entire company website. That took down the business for several weeks until the site was restored.
“I'm not a fan of fear-based selling, but I am a fan of being prepared, and this is one of the most common real-world scenarios that our partners deal with,” she said. “And it's also one of the highest risk moments for your customers. When someone leaves an organization, you as the managed service provider need to know immediately what that person had access to. And that's not just their email password, but every credential that they touched.”
How could Bitwarden have helped that partner? It provides administrators with access reports to make sure to cover all bases during off boarding, plus event logs that give MSPs a full history of who has accessed anything in an account, when they accessed it and from where.
“My favorite feature is, it's enforcing organization ownership of credentials,” Rightsell said. “With centralized organization ownership, the ownership belongs to the company vault so no single user holds the keys. The owner and admin, or you as a partner acting as an owner and admin, will have continuity of control. This provides advantages such as complete reporting, easy item management, and most of all, the streamlined succession or off boarding of employees. You can immediately reassign access, manage the environment, but also demonstrate that clear chain of custody without any disruption to your end users.”
She said Bitwarden’s solution is flexible enough to work in a co-managed model as well.
“Co-managed environments are really about permissions and delegation, and that's where Bitwarden's vault structure supports your needs,” Rightsell said. “A client's internal IT team can hold their own admin rights and of course, managing inside their organization, while you as the MSP still sit above it all with that provider-level oversight through our provider
portal. This isn't an either/or setup where the MSP runs everything or the client runs everything.”
Watch the entire video at the top of the page for more insights. And make sure to visit Bitwarden’s booth at the MSP Summit Sept. 28-30 in Orlando, FL.