Lathrop & Gage LLP is a prestigious law firm with over 700 desktops and laptops running 400 plus applications.  As any IT team can imagine, this poses many challenges, especially related to its staff that works in various remote locations. So what steps did Lathrop take to secure its distributed computing environment?  

Lathrop made the decision to move to a least privileges PC environment.  With this decision, Lathrop decided that Viewfinity’s Privilege Management solution was the best solution for their needs because of its ability to manage and control mobile endpoints over a secure internet connection.  Among the challenges, IT needed a way to efficiently and immediately install custom applications needed by an attorney at a remote site.  The Lathrop IT team is able to push a policy that is immediately propagated on the endpoint (no logoff/logon cycle is needed), elevating privileges for the specific application requested by the attorney, allowing it to be installed and executed, without having to invoke a remote terminal session and use a RUNAS function. Thus the attorney’s focus is on the client’s requirements instead of having to take on the role of an IT support person. With Viewfinity, Lathrop has been able to manage user access privileges effectively and efficiently. 

Ben Weinberger, CIO, of Lathrop & Gage said, “With Viewfinity, we have a method for securing the endpoint client by elevating privileges on the application level, or for desktop functions, rather than providing blanket administrative permissions at the end user level. Being able to control lockdown policies and elevate privileges on the fly, regardless of the end user’s location, and do that cleanly, is very powerful. This has proactively alleviated many IT concerns.” 

Read the full Lathrop & Gage Case Study

You've got to read this.  This is a reposting of a March 12, 2011 article that was posted on InformationWeek online:

"Jake Widman 03/12/2011 They make the news on a regular basis: incidents in which a company or government agency's security is breached, leading to a loss of information, personal records, or other data. There are many ways to measure the size or cost of a security breach. Some result in the loss of millions of data records, some affect millions of people, and some wind up costing the affected businesses a lot of money. Not to mention, the questions of you calculate the value of personal medical information vs. credit card numbers. Here are ten security breaches of epic scale, plus one "bonus" incident that ranks among the boneheaded moves of all time."

Locking down machines and using a commercial privilege management solution to manage user permissions further protects companies from experiencing these security nightmares. Companies are turning to Viewfinity for managing that added layer of protection that will halt breaches that could otherwise occur.

Read the chronicle here:  http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229300675&pgno=1&isPrev=

And after you've read it, download our free Local Admin Discovery Tool that analyzes your Active Directory domain and discovers desktops with local administrator rights.  Once the analysis has been run, you can take action by removing the users or suspicious groups from the Administrators group. 

Perspective:
With the Windows XP sunset date fast approaching, plans for Windows 7 migrations are in full swing. This has prompted most organizations to re-assess their approach to PC lockdown. Our survey indicates a 456% jump in demand to implement privilege management software for companies planning to migrate to Windows 7 in the first half of 2011. The data further shows that 63% of survey respondents deem it critical to manage administrative privileges for end users to ensure security and reduce vulnerability.

A smart approach. A privilege management system balances the rigidity of locking down end points with the needs of user customization. It provides security and operations professionals with a method for securing the end-point by elevating privileges at the application level, or for desktop functions, rather than providing total administrative privileges. Systems are less at risk without sacrificing user productivity or increasing support call volume, thereby offering a cost effective approach to providing secure and productive desktop computing environments.

Access the newsletter and resources here.

Many organizations look at the migration to Windows 7 as an opportune time to re-evaluate polices associated with granting local administrator rights to users on Windows system.  There are a number of advantages when end users do not have local administrative rights on their Windows desktops.  These include:

-         Less chance for malware to successfully attack the system.   When the end user doesn’t have local administrator rights, the malware that tries to exploit vulnerabilities in software such as media players, mail clients, and internet browsers is much less likely to succeed.   A locked down desktop doesn’t eliminate the need for firewall, AV, and other security software, however it certainly does provide another layer of defense against malware.

-         Reduce chance for the end user to make unauthorized changes to the system.   When users are not able to make unauthorized changes to their system there is less chance for something to break that will lead to a support call from the user.   The more changes that are made to a system the more chance that there will be system or application errors introduced.  Locking down the desktop results in a more stable and predictable computing environment for the end users.

-         Better control on which applications are installed and used on the system.   When end users do not have local administrator rights there are many applications that they can no longer install.   This helps organizations better ensure compliance with software license counts.  Controlling which applications are installed and run on the desktop also limits the chances for application incompatibility issues.

-         Fewer support calls to the IT helpdesk.   When end users are running in an environment that is more stable from a perspective of system changes and applications that are installed, there are problems that the end user encounters.  This results in fewer calls to the IT helpdesk.   

The Federal Desktop Core Configuration is a list of security settings recommended by the National Institute of Standards and Technology for computers that are connected directly to the network of a United States government agency.  But as pointed out by Carter Raines, Director of Technology at PrepFire, a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business, FDCC is only a small part of the problem.  Following an OMB mandate, organizations are implementing aggressive telework policies so users working remotely or on the move is growing at an exponential rate.  New devices are entering the network all the time.  New applications are required for users to do their jobs, and some of these require administrative rights to execute.  And more changes are coming. 

Listen to this recorded webcast sponsored by PrepFire to learn more about how you can effectively lockdown your environment to meet FDCC mandates but avoid the reprecussion of increasing calls to your help desk because users cannot perform the functions they need which require admin rights. 

FDCC Webcast:  https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/986551281 

11 tools for Windows 7 Migrations – Part 10 – Viewfinity User Migration
By Jon Brodkin, Network World, 9/27/2010

These software tools make upgrading to Microsoft's new operating system a lot easier

Product name: Viewfinity User Migration
Manufacturer: Viewfinity
Price: $10 to $25 per desktop

Key features: Viewfinity User Migration is wizard-based software that works with Microsoft’s User State Migration Tool “and adds out-of-the-box automation for multiple-user migration, all from a centralized status and monitoring console,” allowing automatic movement of settings and user data without the need for custom scripting.

http://www.networkworld.com/slideshows/2010/092710-windows-7-migration-tools.html#slide11

As the feature sets of PC lifecycle management (PCLM) suites have increased, so has the complexity of their software. Organizations that don't allocate enough effort to properly manage the PCLM infrastructure are often unable to provide the desired level of service to their users.

For this and many other reasons, cloud-based solutions are emerging for a variety of systems management functions. Just as some companies are well-suited for cloud-based CRM, some companies are more well-suited than others for cloud-based PCLM. Is your company one of them? Dwain Kinghorn, Partner at SageCreek Partners and member of the Viewfinity Board, addresses this issue in greater detail on ebizQ: http://bit.ly/9acbxS.

You can download Dwain’s complete white paper from Viewfinity here: http://bit.ly/9HPNoh

-New OS Image Deployment, Patch Management, Privilege Management and Interactive Dashboard Features Continue Viewfinity’s Commitment to Customers-

Waltham, MA – June 14, 2010 – Viewfinity (www.viewfinity.com), the innovator of privilege and systems management, today released version 3.0 of its solution suite. Nearly 3 months after its debut launch into the market, Viewfinity continues to make good on its commitment to customer-led product development and to build products that are critically needed in the market.

See the new features and updates in a live webcast demonstration, June 16th at 11:45 am ET

Register here to attend: http://www.viewfinity.com/Resources/LiveDemo.aspx?reg=sm

Additional Viewfinity features / functionality include:

· Privilege Management: administrators can create policies that will execute scripts without needing to assign local administrator rights to the end user; identify applications that require administrator rights, and permit or block the use of child processes

· OS Deployment: creates an exact disk image of the laptop/desktop including the operating system, configuration files and all applications and deploys the image to multiple systems simultaneously, making it ideal for rapid bare-metal installations (OS deployment via Acronis Snap Deploy)

· Patch Management: fully manages the distribution of updates released through Microsoft Update to computers in your network as well as mobile computers not connected to the internal network

· Viewfinity Dashboard: provides a quick view into the operations and status of the company assets through live monitoring of select desktops and servers to identify problematic areas

· Windows 7 OS Deployment with Viewfinity User Migration: a valuable add-on to the Acronis image deployment software for domain based migration of user personal settings, application settings and user data files to prepare for and perform the migration from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7.

Viewfinity also complements traditional systems management, such as SCCM, by offering new flexibility to manage administrator rights for locked down computers.

Viewfinity Systems Management solution can be delivered from a web-hosted platform or installed on premises. All desktop management is done through a secure and encrypted HTTPS connection which provides the ideal method for managing PCs for remote and mobile workers. Its web-hosted platform is also ideal for proof-of-concept evaluations because it eliminates the need to build a complex server environment to evaluate or deploy the software.

Online registration is available for trial evaluations here: http://www.viewfinity.com/SaasStart.aspx

Tags: Viewfinity, Desktop Management, Systems Management, Patch Management, OS Deployment, Software Deployment, Privilege Management, SaaS, Windows 7 Migration

About Viewfinity

Viewfinity is the innovator of systems and privilege management via cloud-computing, allowing IT professionals to focus on managing systems and not the platform's infrastructure. With the cloud model, IT can be up and running quickly to provide management, support and control for desktops, servers and laptops. This makes it extremely cost effective and easy for IT to support local as well as mobile workers.

Viewfinity uses virtualization technology as the foundation to simplify and automate deployment and management of applications, licenses and assets. Viewfinity also complements traditional systems management by offering compliance adherence to flexibly manage privileges for locked down computers. Viewfinity's cloud approach delivers immediate and long-term value, scales with business need, and eliminates the equipment, training, and substantially higher costs of on-premise implementations. Based in Waltham, MA, information on Viewfinity systems management solutions can be found at www.viewfinity.com.