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Passlogix Unveils New Version of v-GO Shared Accounts Manager

(Dec 08, 2007)-- Passlogix announced v-GO Shared Accounts Manager (v-GO SAM), a new module in its v-GO Sign-On Platform that offers an industry-first approach to managing access to privileged accounts. v-GO SAM leverages v GO’s enterprise single sign-on capabilities and its interoperability with identity management and strong authentication systems to close the security gaps associated with shared credentials, offer new capabilities that aid regulatory compliance, and eliminate the need for a dedicated vault system for shared account management.

v-GO SAM enables credentials to be securely shared by multiple users such as system administrators who must access privileged accounts, workgroup members who must share a pool of generic accounts, and temporary workers or contractors who must be issued temporary generic accounts. It interacts with v-GO Single Sign-On (v-GO SSO), the core application in the v-GO product suite, to receive and respond to requests for credentials.

With v-GO SAM, a user requiring access to a privileged account makes an online request to check out a specific username and password from a central container dedicated to shared accounts, usually located in a corporate directory such as Active Directory. The request is approved or denied based on the user’s role and group membership in the corporate directory and/or an approval workflow in the enterprise’s identity management system.

The system then issues the username and password, subject to policy-based usage controls such as a two-hour credential expiration or a limited number of logins. The user never sees the password so it can never be shared with anyone else. After expiration, the username and password are automatically deleted from the user’s credential store and checked back in to v-GO SAM. Usernames and passwords cannot be checked out to multiple users simultaneously, thus establishing a single point of accountability for all activity on the target system.

Instead of buying a separate hardware or software vault system to administer shared accounts, v-GO SAM allows organizations to use their existing enterprise single sign-on (ESSO) infrastructure and identity provisioning systems to address the challenge of privileged account password management and compliance. System administrators can now manage both conventional and shared credentials with a common strategy and infrastructure.

v-GO SAM’s integration with Passlogix’ ESSO technology also makes the product:

• The first solution with an identity-centric architecture that relies on a user’s identity and optionally, an identity management system, to govern the usage of shared account IDs, This makes it possible to associate credentials to a unique individual for accountability purposes.

• The first solution that hides credentials from the end user, eliminating the threat of password sharing, associated accountability problems, and the possibility of passwords getting into the hands of non-privileged users.

• The first solution that can require use of a strong authentication device in order to sign-on to the privileged account, providing an additional layer of security.

These features offer significant advantages for organizations that must comply with regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley (SOX), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) and Payment Card Industry (PCI) requirements governing data security.

In the case of PCI, for example, v-GO SAM aids compliance for merchants and service providers handling credit card information in part by fulfilling the requirement that each user accessing system components or cardholder data be identified by a unique user name. The combination of the unique identifier required for v-GO logon (typically the Active Directory user ID) and v-GO SAM’s one-password-at-a-time policy helps meet that mandate and protect payment card processors against serious PCI-related penalties.

v-GO SAM is the latest add-on product to the core v-GO single sign-on platform. Five other modules extend v-GO’s single sign-on capabilities to any form of strong authentication and to kiosk environments; enable all identity provisioning systems to automatically inject user credentials into v-GO SSO; permit self-service reset of forgotten Windows passwords; and centralize management of strong authentication devices. The platform has sold more than 6 million licenses to organizations around the world.

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