Privileged Access and Administrator Password Management

Symark PowerKeeper® is a hardened appliance that creates and secures privileged accounts through automated password resets and management, encryption, secure storage of credentials, and a sealed operating system. Its highly configurable security features let you customize the product to fit your heterogeneous IT environment and compliance requirements. For additional reliability, all encryption in PowerKeeper is provided by commercially supported, FIPS 140-2 validated software. Only PowerKeeper can deliver the level of security and reliability that organizations need to satisfy compliance, auditing, operational, and internal risk-management requirements.

Privileged (or administrative) passwords are pervasive in any organization. More numerous than personal passwords, they are used to access virtually every device, every operating system and every application. These “keys to the kingdom” grant access to programs and files containing sensitive data. If they are not properly protected, managed, and reset from their default passwords, they represent a significant security and compliance risk to the organization.

But privileged passwords are difficult to manage. They are often shared among individuals, lost or forgotten, left as default passwords, not regularly maintained, and not protected from misuse. This results in high administration costs and lower productivity. Ignoring this reality creates unacceptable security risks, and also violates government regulations (like SOX, HIPAA, and GLBA) and industry standards (like PCI DSS and Basel II). Compliance with these regulations and standards requires the creation of a secure access-control infrastructure and adherence to security best practices. Symark PowerKeeper provides a simple to implement, straight forward solution to these problems and closes these security risks while helping you demonstrate and meet compliance requirements.

A user requests a password through PowerKeeper, “checks out” the password (which may require a manager’s approval) and uses it to log in to a privileged account. Similarly, an application requests a password and PowerKeeper authenticates the application against the approved program factors. If authenticated, PowerKeeper checks out a one-time password to the application. In either case, PowerKeeper can reset the password after it is “checked in” or after a pre-determined time. All requests and password activity is logged by PowerKeeper.