The Direction Generale des Systemes d'Informations (DGSI) of the State of Geneva Deploys Balabit and Lieberman Software to Provide Managed Access for Privileged Users

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Oct 25, 2016) -   Balabit and Lieberman Software Corporation implemented their joint solution at the Direction Générale des Systèmes d'Informations (DGSI), a division of the Security and Economics Department of the State of Geneva, leveraging both companies' industry leading privileged user access and management solutions. DGSI is one Balabit's and Lieberman's joint clients, as a result of their technology partnership since 2011, recently extended with global sales and marketing alliance.

DGSI is responsible, in collaboration with other departments of the state, for developing and setting strategy for information systems and communication of administration and security policy. Recognizing the importance of securing their critical assets and protecting its employees against the growing volume of cyber attacks, DGSI senior management decided to strengthen its security tools by setting up a solution for user access management. 

During the vendor selection process, CyberArk, Wallix, Lieberman Software and Balabit products were all evaluated, but the DGSI chose Balabit's Shell Control Box (SCB) privileged user monitoring solution together with Lieberman Software's Enterprise Random Password Manager (ERPM).

The combined solution, recommended and implemented by integration partner I-Tracing, provides:

• Monitoring of all privileged user access (systems administrators, etc.) to servers and other systems,
• Supervision of the entire IT environment,
• Recording of administrators' commands and application launches, and
• A tamper-proof, easily interpreted evidence for forensics investigations.
  
  

"The secure storage of video records, the transparent operation and the smooth network integration were all important for us. But the decisive point was the fact that SCB was able to do Optical Character Recognition, not only on the titles of the windows, but on all content appearing on the screen of the users," Project Manager, Direction Générale des Systèmes d'Information, State of Geneva said.

"We are delighted to be selected by DGSI to secure data for this important government institution," said Zoltán Györkő, CEO, Balabit. "We have been working very closely with our colleagues at Lieberman Software and we entered the bidding process confident that not only did our integrated solution perform seamlessly, but offer our customer the most secure technology solution being evaluated. We look forward to fully implementing our joint solution for DGSI and to working closely with Lieberman Software on new opportunities."

Deployed in a high availability configuration, Balabit's SCB is integrated with Lieberman Software's password manager to control and record the access of 200 system administrators at almost 3000 hosts (Linux, Windows, VMware virtual machines and KVM SUN Solaris and IBM AIX systems). The solution was integrated with Microsoft Active Directory, which makes authentications of Windows users easy, while Lieberman password vault capabilities manage the shared UNIX accounts.

"The DGSI implementation is interesting on a number of fronts. It marks the first time a government department has combined real-time monitoring and recording of privileged user activities inside the network in a manner that makes an insider attack or breach almost impossible to pull off," said Philip Lieberman, President and CEO, Lieberman Software. "I'm quite pleased that the integration of our Privileged Identity Management technology and Balabit's SCB went so smoothly and that it provided the security and compliance benefits that DGSI needed."

Centralized access policy, reliable two factor authentication and evidence

The implementation of Balabit's SCB together with Lieberman Software's ERPM offers many benefits to the State of Geneva:

• Two-factor authentication makes it possible to reliably identify the real user behind a shared account.
• SCB monitors and records privileged activities on systems, enabling the organization to investigate IT activities.
• DGSI now has the ability to provide strong evidence of the absence of malicious intent in the case of post-incident investigations. For this, the video recordings can be replayed at any time, offering true comfort to DGSI as for the departments of the state.
• The architecture based on the Balabit SCB solution applies a centralized network access policy for the State of Geneva.
  
  

"We've pioneered a new working philosophy at the local government by introducing a centralized, controlled, and monitored access to our critical systems, replacing an unsupervised, direct access in the past," according to the Project Manager, DGSI, State of Geneva.

About Lieberman Software Corporation
Lieberman Software blocks cyber attacks that bypass conventional enterprise defenses and penetrate the network perimeter. The company provides award-winning privileged identity management and security management products. By automatically securing privileged access -- both on-premises and in the cloud -- Lieberman Software controls access to systems with sensitive data, and defends against malicious insiders, zero day attacks and other advanced cyber threats.

For more information, visit www.liebsoft.com.

About Balabit
Balabit -- founded in Budapest, Hungary -- is a leading provider of contextual security technologies with the mission of preventing data breaches without constraining business. Balabit operates globally with offices across the United States and Europe, together with its network of reseller partners. Balabit's Contextual Security Intelligence™ platform protects organizations in real-time from threats posed by the misuse of high risk and privileged accounts. Solutions include reliable system and application Log Management with context enriched data ingestion, Privileged User Monitoring and User Behavior Analytics. Together they can identify unusual user activities and provide deep visibility into potential threats. Working in conjunction with existing control-based strategies, Balabit enables a flexible and people-centric approach to improve security without adding additional barriers to business practices. Founded in 2000, Balabit has a proven track record, with 23 Fortune 100 customers and more than 1,000,000 corporate users worldwide.

For more information, please visit https://www.balabit.com/.