How an Affordable Housing Organization Gained Credential Risk Visibility for Every Employee

As a statewide affordable housing and mortgage financing organization, Housing New Mexico manages highly sensitive financial and personal data for thousands of New Mexico residents. A breach would mean identity theft, monetary loss, and undue stress for the individuals and families relying on affordable housing programs.

Thus, protecting credentials is ultimately about protecting the lives and livelihoods of the people behind the data.

Like many growing organizations, Housing New Mexico found credential security to be a challenge. Passwords were often reused, stored unsecurely, or written down, and early penetration testing made the risk tangible.

With 125 employees to secure, the 7-person IT team began hardening infrastructure and following stronger directory and password standards. However, with credentials as a primary attack surface, Housing New Mexico still needed a powerful way to secure access to critical systems without slowing employees down.

After seeing Dashlane’s outsized impact as a personal user, Joseph brought the solution to Housing New Mexico in 2020, confident in its security-first approach and ease of use.

With Dashlane, the organization ensured every employee had access to a secure, encrypted vault built on zero-knowledge architecture, meaning even Dashlane can’t access vault data.

The IT team got an intuitive Admin Console, customizable policies, and tech stack integrations, like SSO, SCIM provisioning, and SIEM tools. Employees got “a very easy-to-use product,” according to Joseph, that provides safe, easy access to their passwords and passkeys, plus seamless autofill capabilities, secure sharing, and a strong password generator.

Deployment was quick and straightforward. The IT team rolled out Dashlane organization-wide using PDQ Deploy and Group Policy Objects (GPO) to ensure the browser extension was installed automatically.

As credential hygiene improved, Housing New Mexico upgraded to Dashlane Omnix^TM, an intelligent credential security platform, to go beyond password management.

Omnix delivers credential risk visibility across the browser for every single employee, including those who don’t use their vault. With organization-wide dashboards, automated nudges, and browser-based enforcement, the platform helps security teams identify and reduce credential-based threats across the entire threat lifecycle.

Omnix includes:

An AI phishing alert

Since deploying Dashlane, penetration testers haven’t been able to gain access through credentials, a stark contrast to earlier tests. Plus, password hygiene has steadily improved, with the average Password Health score nearing 80 percent and still trending upward.

Joseph has appreciated the insights into password reuse, risky behaviors, and where to focus remediation efforts, stating “I can't solve a problem if I don't know what the problem is. Omnix has opened our eyes.”

For example, now that his team has visibility into which sites employees are visiting and what browsers they’re using, they can identify higher-risk employees in need of security training and support, as well as which sites to block. In addition, the team can easily report on this risk detection and remediation to demonstrate progress.

The IT team is also saving time and closing security gaps with Nudges. Instead of spending hours each week manually sending employees reminders to fix at-risk passwords, the team uses Nudges to automatically notify employees in real time using the Dashlane browser extension—no IT effort required.

In addition, Joseph’s team can see how many Nudges are being sent, who is receiving them, and why.

“I love the Nudges because they give you that reminder,” Joseph shares. “They pop up in front of you and let you know there's something going on.”

Overall, Omnix has helped reinforce a security-first culture at Housing New Mexico. Credential security is now embedded into everyday workflows, efficiently monitored by the IT team, and supported by leadership.