Royal Bank of Scotland secures systems with DetectIT
View all case studies Published | January 2009
"For our sensitive applications, the standard System-i security facilities simply were not capable of meeting our requirements... We looked at three security packages altogether, but quickly came to the conclusion that DetectIT from Safestone was the only one rigorous enough for our needs," comments Royal Bank of Scotland’s Infrastructure Manager.
Headquartered in Jersey, in the Channel Islands, The Royal Bank of Scotland International Limited (RBSI) is one of the largest offshore banks in the world, with assets and liabilities of more than £5.5n and a further £13bn in custody operations. Its role is to provide full banking services for commercial, corporate and financial intermediary companies in addition to personal local and expatriate customers. Its latest banking applications are based on a network of IBM System-i servers which are secured by DetectIT from Safestone Technologies.
"Our original intention was to outsource management of the new banking systems to a specialist third party,” explains the bank’s Infrastructure Manager. "We quickly came to the conclusion that for our sensitive applications, the standard IBM System-i security facilities simply were not capable of meeting our requirements, particularly if systems were to be outsourced."
The bank embarked on an evaluation project of available security solutions. "We looked at three security solutions altogether but quickly came to the conclusion that DetectIT from Safestone was the only one rigorous enough for our needs. Two were perfectly good enough as auditing tools, but that was as far as they went. "DetectIT is much more comprehensive and can genuinely claim to be a full security management system. A key strength for us was its ability to manage multiple IBM System-i, eliminating the problems of managing user profiles on each system separately.
"The Menu System within DetectIT is also a major strength in that it allows us to display menus which are tailored exactly to the security profile of each user, idle curiosity can be a significant cause of security violations. DetectIT is also particularly strong on reporting and that helps us with our auditing procedures."
For other business reasons, the decision was taken to the applications in-house and RBSI is delighted with the levels of security that DetectIT will provide.
From a user perspective, the bank’s IT Operations Manager comments: "We have six networked IBM System-i supporting 750 users. Although I was not involved in the selection process, I was already very much aware of Safestone, having worked with DetectIT solution elsewhere. I have always found Safestone to be very professional, open to new ideas and suggestions, and very supportive. They positively welcome input from users to their product development plan.
"Due to their high level of specialization, they know and understand security like no one else. As for DetectIT, it is easy to use and very comprehensive. It is also robust and well documented so much that, after the initial configuration process, I have not had recourse to speak to Safestone. But I know they are there when I need them and that's reassuring.”
