VTB 24 deploys DeviceLock to protect hardware

DeviceLock, Inc., a worldwide leader in endpoint device control security, today announced that VTB 24, one of Europe’s largest retail banks, has selected its DeviceLock® software as its endpoint device control platform.

DeviceLock has been deployed across the bank’s global network, including its City of London office, to protect its employees’ computers, laptops and mobile devices from data leaks.

Bank VTB24 is one of the Europe’s largest and fastest-growing banks.

Part of the international VTB Bank Group, VTB24 provides a full range of retail banking products and services to individuals and small businesses.

Over the last few years, it has been steadily improving customer convenience, privacy protection, and reliability – setting the bar high in each area for the entire financial services sector.

Key to this strategy is careful investment in IT security systems and business continuity.

After thorough research in the field of endpoint information security, VTB24 selected DeviceLock software as its endpoint data leakage prevention platform.

VTB24’s IT infrastructure is a distributed heterogeneous system that includes Microsoft Windows, as well as UNIX and Novell network operating systems.

DeviceLock now protects servers and employee hardware across the entire IT infrastructure at VTB’s large London office and all branches in its native Russia.

As part of its rigorous IT security policy, Bank VTB24 takes an integrated, holistic approach to managing the entire life-cycle of its IT systems.

Information security risks are managed by employing best-of-breed solutions from different IT security vendors for everything from anti-virus protection to PKI encryption.

An annual general audit conducted by external audit firms includes an information security audit and assessment of the IT system.

According to Anatoly Bragin, Chief of VTB24’s Information Security Department: “Today, with the proliferation of high-capacity removable storage devices, there is a much greater threat of information leaks from the bank’s IT networks as well as its infiltration by destructive malware elements.

“We’ve determined that DeviceLock is the software product that can most effectively help us to fight this type of threat.”

Bragin continued: “It’s been on the market for almost a decade, building a rich feature set that has been field proven by other financial service customers around the world.

“In fact, we’ve used a previous version of DeviceLock and found it a highly functional and reliable product.

“DeviceLock provides flexible control over a computer’s local ports and devices, thus addressing one of our most significant information security problems.”

Previously, any unauthorised local connection of external devices to computers was blocked by either physically switching off some of the device interfaces or disabling them at the BIOS level.

The bank’s IT staff realised that this approach was becoming impossible to implement and manage – a situation that would be aggravated by VTB24’s rapid growth plans.

The number of computers in the bank’s network was quickly escalating and the network itself was being distributed over several more geographical locations.

Meanwhile, the number of peripheral devices employees were attempting to connect to the network was growing exponentially, particularly USB-connected devices.

There were simply too many ways for employees to connect devices locally to computer endpoints spread across the network without supervision, creating potential channels for data leakage – from USB flash drives to printers, scanners, web cameras, etc.

After the deployment of DeviceLock, the problem was solved.

“Installing DeviceLock was simple. The administrators of the IT Security Department were pleased with the results of the DeviceLock software deployment.

“The deployment did not impact the bank’s existing information security policy. Once deployed, DeviceLock enabled strict enforcement and auditing of device-related policy. It has optimised our device management processes,” emphasised Bragin.

For organisations of any size and industry, DeviceLock software proactively protects endpoint computers against local data leaks and malware infiltration resulting from insider negligence, accidental mistakes or malicious actions.

It enables IT security personnel to precisely control, log, shadow-copy and audit end-user access to all types of local ports and peripheral devices, including Windows Mobile®, iPhone®, Palm® and BlackBerry® smartphones, as well as local and network printers.

Complementing its port, device, and data channel-based controls with data type-level security, DeviceLock supports true file type detection and filtering.

DeviceLock also integrates with leading encryption products from PGP, Lexar, SecurStar, and TrueCrypt in order to protect data on removable storage devices. In addition, DeviceLock blocks operations of USB and PS/2 hardware keyloggers.

Story link: VTB 24 deploys DeviceLock to protect hardware