Cyber-Ark Puts a Cap on Privileged Passwords

Published: October 31, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Organizations concerned about the security of their "privileged" passwords, such as the password protecting the SECOFR user profile on an iSeries or root access on a Unix box, may want to check out the latest release of Enterprise Password Vault (EPV) announced last week by Cyber-Ark.

According to Cyber-Ark, there are regular, everyday passwords that employees use to access systems and applications, and then there are privileged passwords that programmers and administrators sometimes need to use to access hardware devices or applications running as root on a Unix server, administrator on a Windows workstation, Cisco Enable on a Cisco network device, or any application account used to connect to a database.

Not surprisingly, protecting these privileged passwords is critical to maintaining security, and this is the goal of Cyber-Ark's EPV software. This software creates a central point for storing, accessing, and maintaining administrative passwords used to access Windows, AIX, OS/400, OS/390, Solaris, HP/UX, and Red Hat Linux, while also creating an audit trail of all privileged password activities, including requests, accesses, retrievals, policy applications, and password resets. The sensitive password data itself is protected through the use of firewall, access control technologies, and lots of encryption.

With EPV 4.0, Cyber-Ark has introduced a new workflow system, including a new wizard for defining new privileged passwords, and a new "self-learning" system that automatically produces lists of recently used passwords and frequently used passwords.

According to Udi Mokady, founder and president of the Dedham, Massachusetts, company, products like EVP are needed to augment security. "Companies understand that mismanagement of privileged passwords is a critical security risk that must be addressed," he says. "Privileged password management is now a basic tenant of IT security best practices, regardless of where an organization is or what products and services it offers."

EPV runs on Windows Server 2003. For more information, go to www.cyber-ark.com.