Privilege Management… What is it and do I really need it?

If any of you reading this use Windows 7 on your laptop and computer, or you administer a number of Windows 7 machines, you will be all too familiar with the User Access Control (UAC) prompt.  You will know the frustration as user being unable to update your computer, even though you know it’s the right thing to do, but as an administrator you need to lock down the UAC, as you can’t have users installing untrusted pieces of software.

We see that the users need the flexibility to be able to do their job, while the administrator has the security of the IT systems in mind.

What’s the fix? 
In most organisations, there is an IT team who have to enter in administrative credentials when required.  This may be workable or acceptable in a small organisation, but in larger organisations more members are required in the IT team.  Even in our organisation with 35 people, it can consume a lot of time form the internal support team, especially when there are Adobe or Java updates for instance.

A better solution? 

The Viewfinity Management solution, will offer the following functions:

• Elevate privileges – allowing certain processes or applications to automatically have their administrative rights elevated.
• Block/White listing – allowing specific software to blocked or allowed to run.
• Policy Automation and On Demand Elevation – allowing ad-hoc self-elevation for power users and allowing end users to have specific policy workflow applied.
• End User Experience – allowing customised messages, keeping the user experience more in line with company policy.
• Remote Workforce – allowing policies to propagate to home works, remote office or frequent travellers.
• Compliance Reports – gives reports on all users, including full audit trials for compliance validation, with dedicated reports for SOX, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and other industry mandates.  

The Viewfinity Management solution can be deployed as a GPO snap-in, a server based software solution or as a cloud solution, giving flexibility in choice, but also the ability for resellers to move into Managed Service Provider (MSP) realm  providing this solution to multiple end users.

Do I really need it?

If you don’t want to employ a team to manually enter in credentials or maximise your support team in other activities, then any Windows domain with Windows 7 computers needs a solution like Viewfinity.

Here is a recent review from SC Magazine: http://www.scmagazine.com/viewfinity-privilege-management/review/3675/

e92plus are the sole distributor for Viewfinity in the UK.