Best practices for a privileged access policy to secure user accounts
The process of securing accounts includes a variety of factors, one of the most important being ensuring employees have the minimum access necessary to target platforms. In addition, employees' job functions and related access should be reviewed to ensure there are no separation of duties issues. Case in point: A person who creates a vendor account should not be able to approve payment to that vendor.
SearchSecurity.com (Jun 2009)

Software watches the watchers
It’s a harsh reality, but in this economic environment there are layoffs and companies need to make sure employees that are let go can’t access networks and files after they walk out the door. Agoura Hills, Calif.-based Symark is a company supplying software that enables IT administrators to see who accesses what files, giving them the ability to shut individuals out of systems with just a couple of clicks, says John Mutch, CEO at Symark.
DigitalIDNews (Jun 2009)

Security Experts Raise Alarm Over Insider Threats
Security researchers and other experts are turning up the heat on insider threats, warning enterprises that the problem is growing and could prove devastating for many enterprises.
Dark Reading (May 2009)

Battle From Within
IT security personnel regularly face the daunting task of protecting their enterprises from external threats that continue to strengthen in both complexity and effectiveness. But dangers to data don’t always begin at the outer walls of the enterprise; on the contrary, insider theft is rising at a striking pace.
Processor (May 2009)

Get A Handle On Fraud
Solid oversight saves firms from being blindsided by internal fraud. That's why financial reporting isn't the only thing internal auditors monitor. Operations, systems and risks are also specialties of the detail watchers.
Investors.com (Apr 2009)

Changing Passwords at the Speed of Business
“The entire industry has this trust-based system, where the system administrators all share the root or domain password, and you trust that these people will behave appropriately,” according to Jeff Nielsen, director of development & QA at Symark International, Inc., an information security company specializing in identity and access management solutions
Business Trends Quarterly (Mar 2009)

Internal Security Lapse Seen in Fannie Mae Case
Insider threats to data security via theft or sabotage are sure to rise, especially as companies increase employee layoffs during a bad economy. One sign of the times is the appearance of the infamous "logic bomb," a software bug timed to hose a company's network, typically planted by someone with network access.
Redmondmag.com (Feb 2009)

The Peril of 'Orphan' Accounts
Layoffs in the financial services industry can have security implications, one of them being “orphan” accounts, according to security experts. By neglecting to close these accounts, companies can inadvertently enable former (and sometimes disgruntled) employees to steal information, commit corporate malfeasance or generally wreck havoc, according to Ellen Libenson, vice president of marketing for Symark International, Inc.
Banking Strategies (Jan 2009)

Employee layoffs pose security risk if systems access not disabled
Former systems administrator Jeff Nielsen has a message for CIOs in this season of horrific employee layoffs and hard times: Beware orphaned accounts. A study from Symark International Inc., a maker of systems access management solutions, suggests that orphaned accounts -- user accounts that remain open after an employee leaves a company -- are a significant security risk at many corporations.
SearchCIO.com (Dec 2008)

Bring Unix, Linux and Mac under the Active Directory umbrella
Enterprises don't just run Windows machines. Critical servers and applications run on various flavors of Unix and Linux. You may have marketing people on Macs, and C-level executives carrying those trendy Mac laptops. One obvious answer is to leverage Active Directory across platforms.
SearchSecurity.com (Sep 2008)

Angry IT workers: A ticking time bomb?
IT workers are mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore. What can you do to keep things from reaching the point of no return? It was 9:30 on the morning of March 4, 2002, and something was terribly wrong at the offices of PaineWebber UBS. Computers in branches all over the country began showing disc errors. A logic bomb buried deep within the machines had wiped their hard drives clean, preventing 17,000 brokers from making trades.
InfoWorld (Sep 2008)

Tracking Privileged Users Is a No-Brainer
Carl Weinschenk spoke with Ellen Libenson, vice president of product marketing, and Jeff Nielsen, senior product manager for Symark. Libenson and Nielsen discussed insider security in light of the case of Terry Childs, a network administrator in San Francisco who locked everybody but himself out of the municipal system.
ITBusinessEdge (Sep 2008)

Little Back Doors
When employees leave the company, what happens to their user accounts? Chances are they become orphans. According to a recent survey conducted by Symark (www.symark.com) of more than 850 security, IT, HR, and C-level executives across all industries, 42% of companies have no idea how many orphaned accounts exist within their organization, and 30% say they have no procedure in place to locate orphaned accounts. So what’s the problem?
Processor (Jul 2008)

Managing Insider Threat by Securing Privileged Access
Symark focuses on solving the inherent security gaps in native UNIX, Linux and Windows operating systems. In business for over 20 years, Symark has hundreds of thousands of licenses in use throughout the Global 2000 with a customer retention rate of over 90%.
Info Security Products (Apr 2008)

Active Directory, Meet Unix & Linux
PowerADvantage is an integrated authentication and configuration utility from Symark that brings Unix and Linux systems all the benefits of Active directory, including centralized authentication, account access, policy enforcement, and infrastructure management.
Processor Magazine (Apr 2008)

RSA: Central management for IT shops security that covers it all
Symark offers something unique to help with ID management and policy enforcement. The Power series, PowerBroker, PowerKeeper, and PowerADvantage, are three tools that can help manage policies and identification in environments that use multiple platforms.
The Tech Herald (Apr 2008)

Symark Tackles Tough Access Control Problems
The majority of security breaches are perpetrated by internal users, such as systems administrators with powerful user profiles that give them open access to the servers they manage. Symark International is one of the software vendors helping companies control internal access to popular servers. This week the company launched its newest product: PowerADvantage.
The Linux Beacon (Apr 2008)

Symark's security access tool bridges Linux, Active Directory
There's a downside to adding Linux or Unix servers to a Windows shop: These orphan machines lie outside the protective umbrella of the centralized user authentication and authorization controls of Microsoft Active Directory. The result? Multiple user identifications and logins, higher risk of errors and security loopholes, and of course, more work for system administrators.
SearchEnterpriseLinux.com (Apr 2008)

Symark Interview
Symark's V.P. of Product Marketing, Ellen Libenson, is interviewed by Mike D'Agostino of BankInfoSecurity at RSA Conference 2008.
RSA Podcast (Apr 2008)

Passport Breaches Fuel Concerns
Experts said insiders often are neglected when agencies set procedures. "There's been so much emphasis on hacking from the outside; it's the people inside who are just as much of a risk."
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (Mar 2008)

Access Control - Symark PowerBroker
Symark PowerBroker solves the dilemma of providing root access privileges to multiple users on Unix-based systems without compromising security.
Information Security (Oct 2007)

Symark Joins Crowded Cross-platform Management Field
Agoura Hills, Calif.-based Symark Software recently joined a long list of vendors offering a cross-platform authentication and configuration application for managing Linux and Unix servers using Microsoft Active Directory (AD).
SearchEnterpriseLinux.com (Sep 2007)

Trust But Verify
Some years ago, a small manufacturing firm was hijacked by its IT employees. They didn't use weapons, but they did commit murder: They killed the business. Unfortunately, they were aided and abetted by the company's own lax security policies.
Enterprise OpenSource Magazine (Apr 2007)

Eliminating Insider Threats
Everyone wants to think well of the employees and colleagues to whom they trust the administration of mission-critical systems, but it is smarter to think about enforcing best security practices that close the door to temptation.
itdefensemag.com (Apr 2007)

Controlling Access in Linux and UNIX Environments
One of the most common security challenges Linux and UNIX IT administrators face is how to effectively manage the root or super-user account. In an age of regulatory compliance and data privacy laws - and as more and more organizations elect to run mission-critical applications on UNIX and Linux systems - controlling and auditing privileged account access is more crucial than ever
eSecurityPlanet (Mar 2007)

Identity & Access Management
With a continually changing lineup of faces comes the need for robust identity and access management to ensure that the network is open to authorized personnel and, just as importantly, closed to those who shouldnt be there.
Processor (Feb 2007)

Keeping the Fox Out of the Hen House
Some years ago, a small manufacturing firm was hijacked by its IT employees. They didn't use any weapons, but they did commit murder: They killed the business. Unfortunately, they were aided and abetted by the company's own lax security policies. The firm had ignored the best practice of segregating duties.
EbizQ (Feb 2007)