Agoura Hills, Calif. - March 10, 2008 - Symark International, developer of the PowerSeries information security solutions for managing privileged account access, today announced that the company has joined the PCI Security Vendor Alliance (SVA) at the Platinum level. Symarks PowerKeeper 2.0, PowerBroker 5.0 and PowerADvantage comprehensive access control solutions help retailers, E-commerce companies, financial institutions, payment processors and POS vendors to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DDS) by strengthening their security posture and protecting confidential cardholder information.

The PCI Alliance is happy to welcome Symark International to our group, said David Taylor, PCI Vendor Alliance President. As more companies join the PCI Alliance, the result is a more effective, comprehensive set of offerings to help companies realize their PCI compliance objectives.

Symarks solutions help organizations meet the specific requirements laid out in several sections of the PCI standard, including: Section 2 (vendor-supplied system passwords and other security parameters cannot be used as defaults), Section 7 (access to data must be restricted based on role within the business) and Section 8 (a unique ID must be assigned to each employee with access to the network).

Additionally, Symarks technologies are integral components of a sound, multi-layered IT security infrastructure and contribute to helping organizations meet Section 3 (stored data must be protected), Section 10 (all access to network resources and cardholder data must be tracked and monitored) and Section 12 (information security policies must be maintained).

The PCI Security Vendor Alliance complements the objectives of the major card payment brands by helping educate the payment card industry about the business value of achieving PCI DSS compliance, said Bob Farber, chief operating officer at Symark International. Members of the PCI SVA are committed to helping retailers, credit card processors and financial institutions become PCI compliant and ensuring that they have the most secure systems and processes in place.

Features of PowerBroker 5.0, PowerKeeper 2.0 and PowerADvantage

PowerBroker is the industrys most comprehensive solution for authorization and access control within heterogeneous UNIX/Linux IT environments. By granularly delegating what tasks can be performed as the root password and by whom, PowerBroker helps prevent the alteration or deletion of critical system files, unauthorized access of confidential data and the deletion of logged events and audit trails. Version 5.0 includes entitlement reporting capabilities that provide a detailed list of the commands that IT administrators and other users can run, on what systems and when. It also incorporates an access control list feature that simplifies the designation of access rights without requiring lengthy policies to be written. PowerBroker 5.0 helps organizations comply with PCI DSSalong with other regulationsby enabling security managers to more easily grant selective administrative privileges while safeguarding the root password and controlling access to applications/commands, directories/files and permissions on various administrative tasks.

PowerKeeper is the industrys most advanced privileged password management solution for the secure creation, control, storage and retrieval of privileged administrative account passwords in heterogeneous IT environments. The hardened appliance secures privileged accounts through automated one-time password management, encryption, secure storage of credentials and configurable security features. PowerKeeper 2.0 includes support for single-factor authentication against Active Directory or LDAP, as well as a new performance monitor that ensures all the processes and services needed by PowerKeeper are running properly. These featuresalong with a sealed operating system and enhanced encryption that is supported by FIPS 140-2 validated softwarestrengthen an organizations overall security posture and secure privileged accounts across the entire IT environment, enabling organizations to demonstrate compliance with PCI DDS and other regulations.

PowerADvantage, currently in its final stages of Beta testing, is an integrated authentication and configuration solution that extends Microsoft Active Directorys centralized authentication, authorization, account access, policy enforcement and infrastructure management functionality to UNIX and Linux systems. PowerADvantage reduces administration costs, improves security and supports compliance efforts by centrally managing user identifications, authentication, security policies and automatic deployment of configuration settings. Features of PowerADvantage include cross-platform unified login, a simple installation process, integration with Symarks PowerBroker solution, automated deployment of configuration settings and a detailed compliance reporting mechanism.

About Symark International

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