Eeek! The Breach Sheet ‐How Your Enterprise Password Manager Can Keep Your Company Out of the Headlines

Eeek!  The Breach Sheet ‐How Your Enterprise Password Manager Can Keep Your Company Out of the Headlines

Enterprise password manager headlines.

In an August 2013 article published in Tech News World on hacking, the author included a "breach sheet" describing a host of recent security breakdowns and associated consequences — a sobering reminder of what can happen as a result of substandard enterprise data access management security protocols. How do you keep your organization off this list? You leverage identity and access management software featuring an enterprise password manager and user provisioning protocols with workflow automation that keeps your data safe and secure.

If you think that large scale enterprise level companies have a solid handle on identity access management and data security protocols across the board, think again.

On August 5, 2013 the Bank of Scotland was fined 750K pounds by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office for accidentally faxing documents related to mortgages, claims and wills to random individuals rather than the bank’s document scanning department. Apparently this breach extended over a 3 year period and 22 distinct instances.

On August 8, 2013 U.S. Airways Group experienced a breach within the Dividend Miles accounts whereby some customers lost earned credits. While compromised accounts were deactivated and the airline stated it was conducting an investigation in concert with law enforcement, U.S. Airways declined to state precisely how many accounts had been affected.

You may be scratching you head wondering how such large and seemingly sophisticated organizations could fall prey to these kinds of data access management security breakdowns. The bitter reality is that no organization — no matter what they do — is 100% insulated from an information security breach. However, there are measures that an IT organization can implement to ensure they pursue the right risk management solution.

The enterprise-level organizational environment typically features a large number of employees, vendors, contractors and customers accessing company data. Compounding the sheer number of people on the network, data access management security protocols and tools must encapsulate employees that work at home, on mobile devices and in satellite offices all over the globe.

In this scenario, it’s simply not possible to keep data security access management policy in check without a fully featured automated identity access management solution. An enterprise password manager is the first line of defense. When your software solution both mandates complex passwords that are difficult to hack and empowers user self-service reset, you significantly improve your information security overnight without draining valuable IT resources.

When you layer on role-based user provisioning to ensure that your thousands of employees can only access the files they need to perform their duties, you’re in a good position to protect sensitive data and dodge the bullet that lodged in the Bank of Scotland and U.S. Airways.

In a nutshell, the two keys to effective enterprise identity management are (1) workflow automation and (2) solid business rules and protocols enforced by your password manager and access management software that address the evolving and unique needs of enterprise-level organizations.

It’s your ticket to ride ‐implementing an identity and access management solution with enterprise password management and user access management features empowers you to handle the challenges posed by organizational size, complexity and fragmentation. Keep your company off the "breach sheet" — it’s not a happy place to be.

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Written by Gary Thompson

Gary Thompson is a 35 year veteran of the PR industry. He was the president of Shandwick International, the world’s largest agency with 2000 people in 90 offices and 32 countries. A million mile flyer on both American and United, he got off the road at the “encouragement” of his wife. Four years ago, he founded his own firm, Clarity Communications, which counts Avatier as one its most successful clients.