Varonis Systems, Inc., provider of software solutions for unstructured, human-generated enterprise data, has explained how its product suite has helped Emerson Industrial Automation regain control of its file shares and increase efficiency at the same time. The Welsh based manufacturer was crippled by a variation of the Conficker virus just over two years ago. The virus exploited folders that were incorrectly configured or too accessible, which are very difficult to spot and remediate with manual methods. Since deploying the combined power of Varonis DatAdvantage, Varonis DataPrivilege, Varonis IDU Classification Framework, and Varonis Data Transport Engine, Emerson has been able to reduce risk, increase operational efficiency, reduce storage costs, and improve productivity.
Mukid Meah, Systems Engineer - Group IT for Emerson Industrial Automation, explains "Since deploying DatAdvantage, I now have complete visibility of the entire network. Using the information collected, I'm able to click on a server, click on a file share and see exactly who has access. Not only that, I can immediately see what type of access they have, how often they connect to that folder and the data they're using. From the same system, I can modify, add or even remove permissions."
By feeding the DatAdvantage intelligence into DataPrivilege, the combined solution automatically identifies and tracks ownership for folders. The owner then assumes responsibility for granting access to their data, removing the middle man – IT – with everything processed through the DataPrivilege portal. Mukid adds, "We've quickly discovered the efficiency of the combined system. When we train our data owners and end users how to use the software, they're impressed by its simplicity and think it's fantastic. I've not had any problems from anyone saying that they're a bit lost – probably because it's simply click on the folder that you manage and grant or deny access for each user. So provisioning access requests, that previously could take anything from a few hours to a couple of weeks – depending on everyone's availability, can now be resolved in as little as five minutes."
Emerson has recently trialled Varonis IDU Classification Framework to search through its files and folders for instances of its source code – identified either by its extension name or a significant keyword. The Classification Framework then reports which file shares contain the sensitive data and warns if it's overly exposed allowing Mukid to take remediate action.
A final challenge Varonis is helping Emerson to address, with its Data Transport Engine, is its imminent data migration away from a Windows 2003 to 2008 system before support is cancelled by Microsoft. In addition, Data Transport Engine can act as an automated archiving solution. Emerson simply personalises the settings, so it reports what data hasn't been touched in 'x months', moves it and leaves a stub file. For the user, they still easily obtain the data from what looks to them to be the same location, when actually it's stored somewhere else on a different, and more economic, server.
Mukid concludes, "We keep finding, with each of Varonis' products, that they do more than we initially wanted, which is great. It means that justifying the business case and getting the budget approved is that much easier. Overall, it's fair to say I've been very impressed."
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