Trusted Security Advisor

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank Implements Guardium
to Strengthen Database Controls

Security Initiative Driven by ADCB strategy to Monitor DBAs and
Prevent Unauthorized Changes to Critical Databases

Abu Dhabi, 3rd June 2009: Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) has announced the successful implementation of Guardium’s real-time database security and monitoring solution to prevent unauthorized changes to critical financial tables by privileged users such as DBAs.

ADCB started deploying Guardium in December 2008 by StarLink which has a distribution partnership with Guardium covering the entire Middle East region. ADCB was looking for a distinctive method of database auditing to ensure the deployment be trouble-free with no impact to the Databases and Guardium met these criteria.

“We were seeking a unified, cross-DBMS solution that delivers granular, real-time controls without the complexity, overhead and risk of native DBMS-resident auditing, and Guardium fulfilled all our requirements. Our goal is to ensure that critical information is stored securely through the adoption of best-of-breed technologies.” said Steve Dulvin, Head of IT Security at Abu-Dhabi Commercial Bank.

“Through partnering with Guardium, ADCB will ensure the integrity of enterprise data and help to enforce change controls, while simplifying and automating compliance processes,” Steve added. “Unlike traditional database logging solutions, Guardium provides 100% visibility into all database activities - including both privileged and application user actions - across all DBMS platforms, without impacting on performance or IT infrastructure. We believe in layered security to ensure confidentiality and integrity of the bank’s & customer information.”

Guardium monitors all database transactions, without adding overhead or relying on traditional DBMS-resident logs that can easily be disabled by DBAs.  It creates a verifiable audit trail of all transactions – including DBA activities that access databases via “back-door” protocols such as Oracle Bequeath, named pipes and shared memory – and immediately generates real-time security alerts whenever policy violations are detected.  This enables organizations to effectively enforce corporate change controls, such as preventing changes outside of authorized change windows and automates the entire compliance auditing process.

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About ADCB:  

ADCB is a full-service commercial bank which offers a wide range of products and services such as retail banking, wealth management, private banking, corporate banking, commercial banking, cash management, investment banking, corporate finance, foreign exchange, interest rate, currency, derivative and Islamic products, project finance, property management, brokerage, asset management, and strategic investments.   ADCB is owned 64.8 percent by the Abu Dhabi Government through Abu Dhabi Investment Council. Its shares are traded on the Abu Dhabi Securities Market in Abu Dhabi.   In 2008, ADCB was named “Bank of the Year” by Banker Middle East Magazine. For more information, please visit us on www.adcb.com

About Guardium

Guardium, the database security company, delivers the most widely-used solution for ensuring the integrity of enterprise data and preventing information leaks from the data center.

The company’s enterprise security platform is now installed in more than 450 data centers worldwide, including 3 of the top 4 global banks; 3 of the top 5 insurers; 2 of the top 3 global retailers; one of the world’s largest PC manufacturers; a global soft drink brand; and a leading supplier of business intelligence software.

The company has partnerships with Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, BMC, EMC, Accenture, McAfee and ArcSight, with Cisco as a strategic investor, and is a member of IBM’s prestigious Data Governance Council and the PCI Security Standards Council.  

Founded in 2002, Guardium was the first company to address the core data security gap by delivering a scalable enterprise platform that both protects databases in real-time and automates the entire compliance auditing process.

About StarLink

The leading compliance driven solution provider in Middle East, helps organizations achieve and sustain compliance and optimally manage risks through full policy, procedure and controls lifecycle management. We provides unified compliance solution for heterogeneous environments across the enterprise, support all major operating systems such as UNIX, Linux, Windows and Mainframes. To reduce your risk and to ensure you meet industry security mandates ISO27001, HIPAA and PCI DSS.

More information can be found at www.starlink.ae  

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