The present invention provides a method, system, and computer program product for synchronizing security credentials of users and/or groups of users between directories, operating system platforms, and/or registries. The credentials stored at a master registry are used to authenticate whether a user requesting propagation of security credentials has the required permission. If the authentication process succeeds, the user's credentials may be securely propagated to one or more targets. This technique enables synchronizing multiple copies of a user's security credentials without requiring access to a plaintext version thereof, and without forcing the credentials to a new value as part of the synchronization process. The master registry may stored an identification of the targets of the propagation on a per-user basis, or for groups of users, or for the master registry as a whole.