Guarding privileged users

Privileged users on any business system are both vital and dangerous. They are vital because of their contribution to the business – either by what they do as staff or what the bring as important customers or business partners. But they are also dangerous because they become an obvious target for malicious attack, for their access rights can make their identities valuable property to hackers and cybercriminals.

Making sure that their activities are closely monitored and controlled, therefore, is an important task for any business, and the just-announced partnership between Xceedium and WidePoint is aiming at making that task easier and more secure.

The partnership brings together Xceedium’s Xsuite privileged identity management platform for hybrid cloud environments with WidePoint’s network-attached hardware security module to deliver a solution that controls access, monitors, and records the activities of privileged users across hybrid cloud environments.

The partnership extends WidePoint’s enterprise class PIVotal ID solution with a Privileged Management Portal (PMP) and takes advantage of Xsuite’s high assurance multi-factor authentication and PIV/CAC smartcard integration.

“The PIVotal ID PMP marks another milestone consistent with our strategic investment in technology development and our goal of providing best-in-class Managed Mobility Services and Solutions.”

The PIVotal ID PMP solution addresses each of the key endpoints necessary for achieving strong mutual authentication and high fidelity access control, particularly in defining and enforcing security policies for sensitive systems across traditional data centers, virtualised infrastructure, and public and private clouds with FIPS-compliant key management.

This protection has become particularly important in the wake of the NSA/Edward Snowden breach, the latest and most public demonstration of the severe risk privileged users pose and the massive damage they can cause without the appropriate controls in place.

As a managed service or turn-key operation, WidePoint’s PIVotal ID PMP securely stores and manages credentials, federates identities, and protects systems regardless of where they are located, helping to reduce risk, ensure compliance, and lower administrative overhead based on an organisation’s desired level of assurance.