Standard Life Assurance Company

Success Story

Standard Life simplifies password administration with the Novell Security and Identity solution, enhancing corporate security and user productivity.

Overview

Standard Life is Europe's largest mutual life assurance company with assets under management in excess of £75 billion. The company's financial position is regarded as "very strong" by Standard & Poor's (AA) and "excellent" by Moody's (Aa2). It provides financial services to more than 5 million customers, and employs over 13,000 staff in offices throughout the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Spain, Canada, Germany, Austria, Hong Kong, China and India.

Challenge

With more than 13,000 employees spread throughout the world, Standard Life faced several challenges relating to password management. Users were required to first log on to their workstations, then the mainframe system, and at times more than 10 separate applications. This led to users resorting to writing down passwords and displaying them, potentially jeopardizing company security. Moreover, with so many passwords for users to recall, the IT helpdesk was continually bombarded with requests to reissue and reset passwords, increasing administration costs.

Standard Life wanted a secure, password management solution that would centralize management and reduce the number of password-related calls to the service desk. In addition, the company wanted to present a single point of authentication, enabling it to easily monitor both internal and external access to the system.

Novell solution

"Novell products are strategic and important to our business. The Novell secure identity management solution has met all our needs — it has improved business productivity and overall security. We are very pleased with the results."

Philip Murray
Information Service Center Manager
Standard Life

Following a thorough evaluation of various solutions, Standard Life selected Novell Security and Identity for its security, reliability and ease-of-use. The solution is delivered through best-of-breed products, including Novell eDirectory™, Novell SecureLogin and Novell BorderManager®.

"The Novell solution has increased our infrastructure security and improved our users' productivity," said Katie Holland IS Service Center project analyst, Standard Life. "We should have implemented Novell's secure identity management solution sooner."

Novell eDirectory, Novell's premier directory service, stores Standard Life's user identities and serves as the central access point for all applications and data. eDirectory allows the company to store millions of user identities in a single, centralized location.

Novell SecureLogin, another component of the secure identity management solution, enables secure and reliable password management. The directory-based, single sign-on solution encrypts and stores authentication credentials in Novell SecretStore®, a secure repository located within eDirectory, so that users are only required to enter their username and password once, and are then able to easily maneuver from application to application. Currently, Standard Life has deployed SecureLogin to more than 7,000 users and plans for a companywide rollout within 2003.

"Users won't need to rely on their memories to recall so many passwords —SecureLogin will do it for them," said Holland. "The solution will also protect our system against unauthorized access by verifying users' credentials through the directory, ensuring the utmost security."

SecureLogin works in parallel with the company's Customer Internet Access (CIA) project, which uses Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) authentication to validate external users and grant secure access to its corporate systems, while offering a common interface. Novell BorderManager is then used as the firewall proxy and manages access to the Internet. Through the Novell secure identity management solution, the company is now able to track who is accessing its corporate systems and avoid costly security breaches.

Results

Standard Life has already witnessed significant results from the Novell Security and Identity solution. The company now has a secure password management system, enhancing internal and external user productivity and ultimately impacting its bottom line. With only one password to recall, the service desk has seen a considerable reduction in password-related incidents and calls, which will enable the company to reallocate valuable IT resources.

"Novell products are strategic and important to our business. The Novell Security and Identity solution has met all our needs — it has improved business productivity and overall security," said Philip Murray, Standard Life Information Service Center manager. "We are very pleased with the results."