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Passwords for various banks are written in an excel sheet and this excel sheet is password protected. However, there is no control on circulation of this sheet, for many banks only single factor authentication via username and passwords is in place.

What could be a possible security solution to this as that it follows PCI-DSS compliance.

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Passwords should not be stored in excel files.
Secure password mechanisms need to be used, i.e. secure password managers.
It is best to speak with your IT Security Department to come up with a secure solution.

A local password manager that might do the job is KeePass.
Keepass can use passwords along with keyfiles to secure the password files.
Refer to their website for more information - http://keepass.info.

"KeePass supports the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES, Rijndael) and the Twofish algorithm to encrypt its password databases. Both of these ciphers are regarded as being very secure. AES e.g. became effective as a U.S. Federal government standard and is approved by the National Security Agency (NSA) for top secret information."

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  • The business model and nature of work requires spreadsheet to be used. Keeping the same static, it's in best interest to allocate security to this spreadsheet which is always password protected (master password). However there is no controlling of the circulation of this sheet as discussed in OP. Secure password managers such as lastpass, etc were rejected because they were web based. Is there any alternative solution? – Shritam Bhowmick Jan 1 '16 at 13:50
  • KeePass is an example of a local password manager that can use passwords along with keyfiles to open the password files. Refer to their website for more information - keepass.info. "KeePass supports the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES, Rijndael) and the Twofish algorithm to encrypt its password databases. Both of these ciphers are regarded as being very secure. AES e.g. became effective as a U.S. Federal government standard and is approved by the National Security Agency (NSA) for top secret information." – 16b7195abb140a3929bbc322d1c6f1 Jan 1 '16 at 13:57
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Passwords should not be stored in excel sheets.It also depends , where that password is used , the system where the password is used can use two factor authentication , such as using a token generator device along with password or an answer to some security question etc . If the system just require the password for doing everything , it is going to be a piece of cake for bad guys.

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    Nice answer. I think it would be stronger if you changed the last sentence to say "it is more of a security issue." because I'm not sure there's no security concerns even with the 2FA login that you suggest. Eg: the computer would still be susceptible to network and physical attacks. – Neil Smithline Jan 1 '16 at 16:53
  • Yes , right , updated. – Ijaz Ahmad Khan Jan 1 '16 at 17:07
  • but this doesn't provide any solution. – Shritam Bhowmick Jan 3 '16 at 7:40

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