Vanguard Integrity Professionals, the largest independent provider of enterprise security software for System z®, today announced that a top ten U.S. bank has selected Vanguard Policy Manager™ to secure its critical z/OS® banking and credit card business applications. Vanguard Policy Manager reduces the bank's overall security risks by automatically enforcing security policies and preventing employees and contractors from unauthorized System Special access to z/OS systems.
The top ten bank recently outsourced user provisioning for its zSeries® systems, which introduced security risks and compliance violations. The outsourcer's team lacked specific training on z/OS systems and RACF® security servers, and was routinely granting new users higher-level z/OS security access than they should have received. These policy violations were a result of team members accidentally entering inaccurate parameters into the multi-platform application they were using to provision users across all systems. Although the bank's in-house, z/OS security team reviewed user access change reports daily, problems with unauthorized access often went undiscovered for more than a day.
"The bank needed to find a way to safeguard its z/OS systems from unnecessary security exposures and prevent the outsourcer from granting unauthorized access to new users," said Jim Yurek, professional services consultant at Vanguard. "The bank's z/OS security team chose Vanguard Policy Manager to solve its security provisioning problems because it is the only software that precisely controls security policies and enables the bank to protect its critical data and applications."
Before Vanguard Policy Manager was deployed, z/OS security team members spent 30 minutes to several hours analyzing and remediating each unauthorized or mistaken user provisioning. This situation reduced productivity and added another serious risk to the bank as team members were focusing on remediation rather than addressing other security issues. With Vanguard Policy Manager, for the first time, the bank's security managers are able to specify which commands each user, or group of users, can not issue. Then if someone attempts to issue a command that does not comply with established policies, Vanguard Policy Manager either prevents the command from executing or automatically changes it to one that adheres to the bank's internal security policies.
Vanguard Policy Manager helps the bank:
- Enable real-time protection of internal security policies.
- Prevent the execution of unauthorized commands.
- Achieve more granular control over which users can do what.
- Apply policy controls that are more easily activated and deactivated.
- Educate users by automatically issuing messages about why commands are blocked.
"By continuously monitoring all users, even those with highly privileged access, Vanguard Policy Manager enables enterprises to precisely enforce security policies," Yurek continued. "Vanguard Policy Manager significantly reduces an organization's security risks and delivers an immediate return on investment by reducing the time and costs required to analyze and remediate access control list problems."
For more information, or to read the complete case study about how the bank is using Vanguard Policy Manager, visit www.go2vanguard.com.
About Vanguard Integrity Professionals
Vanguard Integrity Professionals, an IBM® Business Partner, provides enterprise security software and services that solve complex security and regulatory compliance challenges and deliver a rapid return on investment. With automated solutions for Audit and Compliance, Operational Security and Intrusion Management, Vanguard enables government agencies and corporations around the world to ensure continuous monitoring of z/OS systems, safeguard cloud computing secure domains, and protect critical data and applications from cybersecurity threats. Vanguard provides live, 24/7/365, customer support.
IBM, RACF, System z, z/OS and zSeries are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Vanguard Policy Manager is a trademark of Vanguard Integrity Professionals, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
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