Safe harbour for privileged accounts

Protecting the integrity of privileged accounts is one of the greatest IT challenges facing businesses today. By gaining access to these accounts, which grant high-level administrative privileges, external attackers or even malicious insiders can take control of a company's entire IT infrastructure and all of its critical information. In this way, they can disable security controls, steal or misuse confidential information, perpetrate fraud and disrupt operations. And it is sobering to realise that the stolen, abused or misused credentials of privileged account holders are used in nearly all IT security breaches.

As the threat of malicious attacks on critical systems and information grows exponentially with advances in technology, companies and organisations of all sizes need to take well-planned measures to protect themselves. It is, for instance, vital for them to have systems in place to proactively detect and respond to in-progress cyber attacks before they are able to strike vital systems and compromise sensitive data. It is equally essential to monitor and analyse internal activity in order to identify potential threats from within.

CyberArk is the only security company focused on eliminating the most advanced cyber threats; those that use insider privileges to attack the heart of the enterprise. Dedicated to stopping attacks before they stop business, CyberArk proactively secures against cyber threats before attacks can escalate and do irreparable damage. The company is trusted by the world's leading companies - including 30 of the Fortune 100 and 17 of the world's top 20 banks - to protect their highest value information assets, infrastructure and applications.

The company now has a regional office in Johannesburg, and serves clients throughout South Africa as well as in several African countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, Angola and Mauritius. The dedicated office for the sub-Saharan region has been established in order to meet growing demand. Managing Director, Craig Harwood, will lead CyberArk's work in South Africa as well as in other emerging economies in Africa.

"CyberArk technology is globally recognised for protecting against advanced persistent threats," says Harwood. "These are threats that can emanate either from within or from outside an organisation, and which can be catastrophic in their consequences."

Advanced threats come about when an attacker gains access to a privileged account, often an orphaned account of someone who has left the company. Using this account, they are able to escalate their privileges and level of access, and to become a persistent threat to the entire system.

Designed from the ground up with a focus on security, CyberArk has developed a powerful, modular technology platform that provides the industry's most comprehensive Privileged Account Security Solution. Each product can be managed independently or combined for a cohesive and complete solution for operating systems, databases, applications, hypervisors, network devices, security appliances and more. The solution is designed for on-premises, hybrid cloud and OT/SCADA environments.

CyberArk Shared Technology Platform is centred on an isolated vault server, a unified policy engine, a discovery engine and layers of security that provide scalable, reliable and unmatched security for privileged accounts. Complete enterprise-ready solutions that protect data, monitor potential threats and respond to attacks are tamper-proof, scalable and built for complex distributed environments to provide ultimate protection against both insider and advanced threats.

In May, the CyberArk Privileged Account Security Solution was selected as offering the best protection against advanced threats at the 2014 SC Awards Europe. Singled out from a group of finalists representing the very best that the information security industry has to offer, this was high recognition indeed for CyberArk's advanced technologies. The judges included representatives from end-user companies, independent consulting firms and academia, as well as a number of industry analysts. Many of these are either practising or former chief information security officers, and also awarded CyberArk a 'highly commended' accolade in the identity management category.

"Privileged accounts are a unique security problem," says Harwood. "Specific controls are needed to protect, monitor, detect and respond to all privileged account activity. CyberArk has a proven track record of providing total protection from this most insidious of business threats."