HSBC adopts new platform to protect internal IT

HSBC central IT staff manage thousands of user accounts across the bank's Unix and Linux estate, making access control, privilege management and reporting on user access a critical concern for IT operations and audit teams.

To help address the demands HSBC is deploying a new system from Centrify.

"Centrify consolidates complex user and computer access into a streamlined and easy-to-manage arrangement within Active Directory, it's a massive plus for us," said Paul Sharpe, an enterprise technical specialist for global IT operations at HSBC.

"Centrify's underlying Zones technology was by far the best approach for us to maintain compliance and simplify our processes."

Sharpe said the bank wanted to enforce password policies, manage user account consolidation in Active Directory and address auditing requirements. "We needed to manage our Linux and Unix systems in a centralised manner and wanted to leverage an existing directory infrastructure."