Using Directory Assistant to tighten security!

Your Information Technology department and your staff can help to tighten security with the help of Directory Assistant 5.0!

Read the ZDNet Report:  Former employees: A security menace?

As reported by ZDNet, the departure of an employee can present a security risk to your network environment.  Often when employees leave a company for any period of time, the Information Technology department isn't notified.  This results in a number of network accounts that should be disabled but are left active, making them a security breach just waiting to happen.

According to the report by ZDNet, over 20 percent of accounts in a network environment come from employees who have left the organization, sometimes as long as five years ago.  With employees having access to applications that are at times not centrally managed, employees may have multiple accounts to which they have access critical business information after they leave.  Often these "active" accounts are overlooked by staff as a result of being uninformed of employee departure or by the fact that the employee that departed had little to no directory information for them resulting in a person in IT from not knowing who to contact to see if this person had other accounts Moreover, companies HR departments keep track of all the new hires, however for the IT department the information obtained for new accounts generally comes from a manager or other employee. Over time users are given access to applications, some of which may run on different platforms with their own security accounts. For an administrator, the users who have access keeps changing on a daily basis. As a result a situation arises where companies often do not know who is accessing the business's network resources. s. 

Moreover, companies HR departments keep track of all the new hires, however for the IT department the information obtained for new accounts generally comes from a manager or other employee.  Over time users are given access to applications, some of which may run on different platforms with their own security accounts.  For an administrator, the users who have access keeps changing on a daily basis. As a result a situation arises where companies often do not know who is accessing the business's network resources.

Directory Assistant's ability to allow users to keep their directory information up to date and thus making it accessible for IT staff greatly reduces the risk of unknown people in the directory.  Moreover, Directory Assistant's Maintenance Rules can notify administrators, managers etc... when directory information fails to be updated by users.  This in turn can trigger any number of events including the deactivation of NT accounts and mailboxes.  Most importantly, Directory Assistant serves as a valuable tool to keep track of your active users and as a safety catch for those dangerous security risks of departed employee-active account.