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PassGo Technologies’ UNIX Privilege Manager awarded “Recommended” rating by SC Magazine

SC Magazine awarded its “Recommended” rating to PassGo’s UNIX Privilege Manager (UPM) product in a group test on policy management in its August 2005 issue. UPM was compared with ten other products and scored the maximum five stars.

UPM brings security to Linux and UNIX systems by enabling administrators to delegate privileges needed to access corporate resources without disclosing the root password. UPM also ensures accountability and compliance with key legislation by auditing all actions down to user level.

In the UNIX world, anyone who knows the root password has access to the root account. This gives them complete control, as there is no way to delegate specific privileges. The systems admin has to decide to control everything, or allow other users root access to perform specific tasks allocated to them. One way leads to overwork, the other to security compromise.

UNIX Privilege Manager (UPM) allows system administrators to delegate administrative privileges without disclosing root passwords. Tasks such as resetting passwords, performing backups and clearing printer queues can be delegated without risking the overall security of the UNIX OS.

To meet growing compliance needs, all activities performed can be recorded. These indelible audit trails can be taken to the level of storing all keyboard actions and screen displays and a replay feature is included to allow sessions to be reviewed.

UPM comprises three elements. A Privilege Manager Client agent carries the delegated user's request to the central server running the Master Daemon. Their credentials and permissions are checked against the policy document and on verification a request is sent to the sanctioned server. This carries a Local Daemon which double checks the validity of the request. If everything checks out, the Local Daemon acts as a proxy administrator with full root access, but confines the user to the specific directories and applications that they have permission to use.

Once loaded, UPM can be configured using a browser-based admin console and integrated with PassGo's Defender to link with the standard UNIX Pluggable Authentication Module.

PassGo’s UNIX Privilege Manager is currently supported on IBM AIX, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX, Sun Solaris, Tru64, NCR MP-RAS, Red Hat Linux, Novell SuSE Linux and SGI IRIX systems.

Click here to read the SC Magazine Review

For more information including a full list of UNIX Privilege Manager features and supported platforms see www.unix-pm.com