[February 26, 2013]

Dell Extends Leadership in Privileged Account Management with Unified Security and Management Solution Set

As reports of corporate data breaches regularly surface, Dell (News - Alert) Software is enabling IT to drive connected security across the organization, offering protection from the inside and the outside. Today, Dell announced the release of Quest One Privileged Access Suite for Unix, which combines Active Directory bridge and root delegation technologies to combat against poorly managed privileged accounts with a single, intuitive interface, to help protect the organization from the inside out.

Hackers increasingly are mounting targeted, purposeful attacks on company infrastructure. Reports abound of disgruntled employees who misuse their privileged access to steal sensitive company data and customer information, or cause havoc to the organization's computer system. Unix systems, by their nature, have the potential for catastrophic security lapses, particularly in the hands of an unhappy employee. Organizations often have many Unix and Linux servers, each functioning independently and requiring its own management of the shared root account. Not only does this result in a disconnected collection of inconsistent controls that rely heavily on error-prone manual processes, but it also means that access to the root account for each system is gained through a password often shared among IT staff.

News Facts:

• Dell Software has refocused the lens on security to establish a connected perimeter around the entire IT environment, offering protection from threats both external and internal. To help protect the organization from the inside out, Dell's Quest One Privileged Access Suite for Unix unifies and consolidates identities across the entire environment, assigning individual accountability and enabling centralized reporting for Unix access.
• Quest One Privileged Access Suite for Unix bundles three privileged account management solutions under a unified console designed to resolve the management and security shortcomings inherent in Unix.
  • Authentication Services is Dell's AD bridge solution, which extends the security and compliance of Active Directory to Unix and Linux - along with Mac and many enterprise applications - and shares a powerful management interface and tight integration with both Quest One Privilege Manager for Unix and Quest One Privilege Manager for Sudo.
  • Quest One Privilege Manager for Unix is a replacement for sudo that provides fine-grained, policy-based control to protect the full power of root access from potential misuse or abuse, and helps define and enforce security policies stipulating who has access to which root function, as well as when and where individuals can perform those functions.
  • Quest One Privilege Manager for Sudo takes privileged account management using sudo to the next level, eliminating inefficient and inconsistent box-by-box management. Dell's unique plug-ins can enhance sudo 1.8.1 (and newer) with a central policy server, centralized management of sudo and the sudoers' policy file, and centralized reporting on sudoers access rights and activities, as well as keystroke logging of activities performed through sudo.
• Quest One Privileged Access Suite for Unix gives IT a modular and integrated privileged account management solution with a unified single source of the truth for access across the entire Unix/Linux environment, using sudo or advanced delegation capabilities that best fit the organization's needs.
• Quest One Privileged Access Suite for Unix is available immediately, with North American pricing starting at $524USD* per server.

John Milburn, Executive Director, Identity and Access Management Solutions, Dell Software

"Poorly managed privileged accounts present one of the biggest security threats to an organization. This means that IT must broaden its security defense beyond a single inflection point, to drive protection from both the outside in and the inside out. The Quest One Privileged Access Suite for Unix offers a complete range of authentication, authorization and administration capabilities for Unix/Linux access that affords enterprise protection from the inside out."

Tim Westcott, R&D Director, Preventia

"The Quest PAM solution is at the core of security solutions that we provide to our enterprise clients in the financial sector," said Tim Westcott, R&D Director at Preventia. "Many of the UK's largest financial organizations rely on our expertise and knowledge, and Quest has been our choice for clients requiring a comprehensive, world-class privileged access management solution for years."

Scott Crawford, Enterprise Management Associates

"When incidents traceable to poor administrative access management occur, organizations should note that auditors, investigators and enforcers will be aware that privileged access management solutions exist to mitigate such risks. Today's PAM solutions can address these gaps, but they can deliver much more. By supporting a more disciplined approach to IT control with a movement towards governance, they can also help organizations improve IT performance and reduce support costs by closing one of the most readily managed gaps of all: the weakness exposed when individuals have broad and unmonitored administrative access to the most sensitive capability in IT."

Security Lapses by the Numbers

• Every day, another company falls prey to a costly data breach. Often, these victims believe they have the correct security practices in place, yet they become pre-identified for attack or for easily exploitable weaknesses, both from inside, and without.
• Despite 855 reported incidents and 174 million compromised records in 2012¹ alone, organizations are struggling to defend their perimeter against these new-world criminals.
• A survey of 150 senior IT decision-makers conducted on behalf of Dell's Quest Software (News - Alert) revealed that:
  • Forty-six respondents have more than 100 privileged accounts in their organizations.
  • More than half of the respondents (53 percent) have more than 10 administrators who must access any of those accounts. More than a quarter of those (27 percent) share the passwords among 10 or more administrators.
  • Almost two-thirds of respondents do not have a high level of confidence that they can track administrative activity performed with shared credentials back to the individual administrator who performed them.

^*Offers subject to change, not combinable with all other offers. Taxes, shipping, handling and other fees apply. Limit 5 discounted units or promotional items per customer. Dell reserves right to cancel orders arising from pricing or other errors.

¹ Verizon (News - Alert) 2012 Data BREACH Investigations Report

Supporting Resources:

• Quest Software, Inc.: http://www.quest.com/
• More Quest news: http://www.quest.com/newsroom/
• Twitter (News - Alert): http://mobile.twitter.com/quest
• Facebook: http://www.quest.com/facebook
• LinkedIn (News - Alert): http://www.linkedin.com/
• Quest TV: http://www.quest.com/tv/
• TechValidate Research: http://www.techvalidate.com/product-research/quest-iam

About Dell

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.com and www.quest.com.

Dell is a trademark of Dell Inc. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.

Quest, Quest Software, and the Quest logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Quest Software in the United States and certain other countries. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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