Securing Privileged Accounts in Financial Institutions

CALGARY, June 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ - Recent security breaches highlight the urgent need for strong IT controls in banks and other financial institutions. This includes strong authentication and authorization - for regular business users, IT system administrators and software agents. In the financial industry, the need for robust corporate governance and privacy protection are more critical than in other industries. In this context, failing to secure access to privileged accounts poses a very significant exposure.

Hitachi ID Systems (http://hitachi-id.com/) is a leading publisher of identity and access management software including solutions to secure access to privileged accounts. The Hitachi ID Management Suite (http://hitachi-id.com/products/) is also used to manage the access of business users to systems and applications and enable users to manage their own authentication factors.

"One of the most important security problems in financial institutions is shared access to administrator accounts," said Idan Shoham, CTO, Hitachi ID Systems. "The larger the organization, the more system administrators it must employ and the higher the likelihood that one of them might compromise security. The business risk is magnified by static and shared passwords assigned to administrator accounts."

Hitachi ID Privileged Access Manager (http://hitachi-id.com/privileged-access-manager/) addresses the risks posed by shared and static passwords on administrator and other privileged accounts. This is achieved by (a) automatically discovering systems and privileged accounts; (b) frequently randomizing privileged passwords and storing them in an encrypted and replicated vault; (c) applying policy and workflow approvals to control access to privileged accounts and (d) generating detailed logs, including session recordings, as a forensic audit trail detailing how, when and by whom these accounts were used.

Due to the urgency of securing access to privileged accounts, Shoham has committed to host a free webinar entitled "A Day in the Life of a Privileged Access Management System" where he will demonstrate the interaction between a variety of business stake-holders and a privileged access management system. The webinar is of interest to security officers, system administrators, application owners and auditors, who wish to understand how such a system would impact their day-to-day work.

"In this webinar, we will explore the impact of a privileged access management system", says Shoham. "The net effect of using a privileged access management system is a more secure infrastructure and - if we've done our job well - more efficient work processes for all the participants."

About Hitachi ID Systems, Inc.

Hitachi ID Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of identity management solutions licensed by mid- to large-sized organizations worldwide. Hitachi ID Systems' solutions enable organizations to effectively manage user authentication, access and compliance with every aspect of the user lifecycle.

Hitachi ID Management Suite includes Identity Manager (http://hitachi-id.com/identity-manager/), Password Manager (http://hitachi-id.com/password-manager/), and Privileged Access Manager (http://hitachi-id.com/privileged-access-manager/). Industry analyst firm, Ovum Consulting, recently classified Hitachi ID an enterprise identity and access management powerhouse, citing the company's robust technology and exemplary customer support. For more information about Hitachi ID Systems and its products, please visit http://Hitachi-ID.com or call 1.403.233.0740.

For more information, please join Hitachi ID Systems on Thursday June 23rd (11am MT, 10am PT, 1pm ET) for "A Day in the Life of a Privileged Access Management System" webinar. To register for this hour-long session, please visit http://hitachi-id.com/webinars/webinarform-securing-access-priv-accounts-001.html

SOURCE Hitachi ID Systems, Inc.