How South Carolina Aquarium Got Compromised Passwords Down to 0 for 200 Employees

As South Carolina Aquarium grew and adopted more digital tools, the organization recognized the need to strengthen its credential management.

Employees were using a variety of unsecure methods—browser-based password storage and personal email accounts—to keep track of credentials. Personal and work credentials were sometimes mixed together, and admins had little visibility and control.

The aquarium’s 3-person IT team supports both guest-facing technologies, such as interactive exhibits, digital signage, and AV show controllers, and mission-critical systems that keep animals safe and healthy. While the team has ensured these systems have redundancy built in, credentials remain a key factor in keeping many of these systems secure.

As the organization moved to more cloud-based tools, the number of credentials to manage increased. Without a unified approach, it was harder to monitor password health, enforce best practices, and reduce risks from weak, reused, or compromised credentials.

Adopting a credential manager became a major step toward safeguarding both staff and operations while keeping workflows smooth.

When reviewing credential management solutions, the aquarium’s IT team had clear requirements:

Dashlane checked every box, so the IT team rolled it out to all South Carolina Aquarium employees. The organization currently leverages the Dashlane Omnix^TM proactive credential management platform to secure every employee credential, whether or not it’s stored in a vault.

With Omnix, admins get visibility across all employees to prioritize mitigation and keep risks from turning into threats. Credential Risk Alerts & Notifications encourage employees to immediately secure at-risk credentials and close security gaps. And AI Phishing Alerts keep employees safe as they browse with phishing-resistant autofill and in-context employee alerts the moment they visit a suspicious site.

Omnix integrated seamlessly with the aquarium’s existing SSO setup using Microsoft Entra ID, making adoption simple and fast for employees.

Since choosing Dashlane, South Carolina Aquarium has significantly strengthened its credential security posture while making day-to-day work easier for both employees and IT. Jamie says the organization has zero compromised passwords detected, a major improvement over its previous unmonitored state.

“Having a proper solution in place for password health makes a huge difference,” Jamie says. “Security is in a much better place overall.”

Work credentials are no longer scattered across personal Gmail accounts and browser storage. Instead, employees securely store and access work accounts through Dashlane, giving IT clear visibility and confidence that passwords are protected.

Many employees also appreciated their complimentary Friends & Family plan, which enables them and up to nine loved ones to secure and easily access their personal credentials.

In addition, secure password sharing has enabled teams to collaborate safely when individual licenses aren’t available, removing a long-standing operational workaround without introducing new risk.

From an IT perspective, centralized password management and automated logins have reduced time spent on resets, access issues, and troubleshooting. Admins can monitor security behavior, and employees are guided by Credential Risk Alerts to fix weak or reused passwords on their own, eliminating the need for IT to enforce password hygiene manually.

Jamie also credits Dashlane’s password generator with changing employee behavior for the better.

“The generator’s a very good feature,” he said. “We don’t make passwords up anymore. We just create them with the generator.”

Dashlane has transformed credential security at the aquarium from a fragmented, ad hoc process into a centralized, reliable system, giving IT and employees peace of mind in an environment where reliability truly matters.