Global Top 20 Bank achieves security goals with Smart Employee ID

A prominent international bank with assets of around 1 trillion Euros looked to increase IT security for its 100,000+ employees located in thousands of branches around the world. To fulfill its vision for secure employee access the Bank chose the ActivIdentity Smart Employee ID solution. The solution secures access to the Bank’s more than 300 sensitive financial applications and its facilities without impacting usability and convenience.

Challenge

Many financial institutions are experiencing a rise in internal security breaches. These breaches include the unauthorized access of sensitive applications containing financial or consumer data. Practices such as sharing passwords among employees or using sticky notes attached to a monitor as a password reminder are not uncommon. With the average employee at the Bank responsible for 30 different passwords, the opportunity for security lapses was high.

The Bank’s ongoing analysis of threats together with new mandates from industry regulators led them to conclude that it required stronger controls, including management of passwords, strong authentication, and physical access security.

Solution

In an effort to meet their security goals and fulfill compliance demands, the Bank began a search for a solution. The ideal solution would offer two-factor authentication for securing access to computers, networks, and applications as well as secure sites and office areas using a single employee ID. The Bank also saw that Enterprise Single Sign On (ESSO) should be integrated with the overall solution to ease the adoption of strong authentication by employees and aid in centrally managing security policies.

The Bank researched the market, evaluating offerings from RSA, Intercede, Passlogix, and ActivIdentity. Only ActivIdentity offered a complete, integrated solution including ESSO, strong authentication, and card management that could scale well across the Bank’s global business units.

Global IT Services Program Manager

“Experience had taught us that an integrated solution from a single vendor such as ActivIdentity is more reliable and easier to support than a loosely integrated solution from multiple vendors.”

Working through Integralis UK, a leading IT security service provider and ActivIdentity reseller, the Bank conducted a comprehensive trial that lasted six months. It concluded with ActivIdentity meeting all of the Bank’s requirements.

The Bank’s deployment of the ActivIdentity Smart Employee ID solution was managed by consultants from Atos, with support from systems integrators LogicaCMG and EDS and Professional Services experts from ActivIdentity. Just three months after deployment began, the first smart cards were issued to staff.

The Smart Employee ID solution enables the Bank to deploy a single smart card ID badge that allows employees, contractors, customers and business partners to securely access corporate facilities and IT networks. The addition of ActivIdentity SecureLogin SSO provides secure automated sign-on to a full range of heterogeneous applications, significantly reducing administration costs and improving user convenience.

Using the ActivIdentity Solution

The Smart Employee ID solution allows organizations to converge user identification and improve facility and IT security by integrating processes and back-end systems. The result is a single smart card for each person across facility and IT domains, providing increased security and accountability. The base solution includes the ActivID™ Card Management System, ActivClient® and ActivIdentity smart cards and readers, with add-ons for SecureLogin® SSO and 4TRESS™ AAA Server.

The entire solution enables two-factor security across the IT infrastructure, including workstation access, network access, remote access, and ESSO access to applications. It also offers secure information and transactions through signed and encrypted emails, documents, files and transactions, as well as secure auditing and data protection.

In addition to network and application access, the ActivIdentity Smart Employee ID solution allows users to gain physical access to buildings and secure areas using card readers. The smart card also doubles as a photo ID for Bank employees.

ActivIdentity Smart Employee ID supports multiple Certificate Authorities for greater flexibility and integrates seamlessly with Microsoft® Active Directory, where user credentials are stored. ActivIdentity solutions allow system administrators to easily manage the SecureLogin SSO solution using the familiar Microsoft Management Console with added tabs specific to SecureLogin SSO administration.

Global IT Services Program Manager

“The ActivIdentity solution is now a key element in consolidating the bank’s security systems into one standardized solution for PKI, logical access, and physical access..”

Looking Forward

With 20,000 current users, the Bank continues to roll out the Smart Employee ID solution to staff around the world with the user base to grow to 70,000.

Benefits

Compliance with regulations

The Smart Employee ID solution addresses IT and facility security compliance requirements instituted by industry regulators. It establishes strong proof of identity, preventing unauthorized access to resources and information, and provides comprehensive audit logs for historical analysis. Password sharing and PINs on sticky notes will no longer be a headache for the Bank’s security managers. The fact that more than one financial firm has been fined by regulators for failing to properly manage passwords in the period since the Bank deployed the solution deems the project a well placed investment.

Total integrated solution

The Smart Employee ID solution is a tightly integrated system that is easy to manage and maintain. ActivIdentity offers a single point of contact for all support issues.

Increased productivity

Staff typically login with user names and static passwords multiple times each day. With the Smart Employee ID solution combined with SecureLogin SSO, the login experience is fast and allows access to any enterprise application for true single sign on, increasing personnel efficiency. The solution also consolidates processes for issuance and management of smart cards, passwords, and physical access, boosting administrative productivity.