Productivity, Compliance With Security Policies Drive Adoption of Identity and Access Management Tools

BOSTON, MA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- April 4, 2007 -- Higher productivity and better compliance with security policies are the two chief factors pushing organizations to adopt identity and access management solutions as part of their information security strategies, according to the latest research in IT security management from Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS).

The findings from this research are published in a new benchmark report, Identity and Access Management is Critical to Operations and Security.

"Identity and access management limits access to an organization's resources to just those with legitimate access. The fact of the matter is that without it, organizations are at risk. The larger the organization, the more resources are in need of protection, the greater the stakes," said Carol Baroudi, senior research director, security, at Aberdeen. "Unless mitigated by automation, the greater the complexity, the longer it takes to grant and revoke access. Decreasing time to legitimate access translates to a gain in productivity. Decreasing time to denying unauthorized access translates to narrowing a window of vulnerability."

Best practices from Aberdeen's research indicate that organizations should:

--  Select solutions with automated account provisioning/de-provisioning
    and policy enforcement;
    
--  Use strong authentication to establish trusted identities; and
    
--  Designate compliance, risk management, and privacy advocates within
    the organization to ensure quality.
    

Aberdeen determined Best in Class companies for this study by looking at several metrics, which included process and quality. According to the findings, the Best in Class:

-- Have lowered administrative costs;

-- Are better able to accurately measure policy compliance;

-- Have consolidated and synchronized individual identity directories; and

-- Average less than four hours to provision and de-provision account
   access.

The leading criteria companies use to evaluate identity and access management (IAM) solutions include support for role-based user administration, which allows companies to provision access to resources based on an employee's role, and centralized management, which allows organizations to manage multiple directories from a unified management console and address the integration of identity information across systems and applications.

Identity and Access Management is Critical to Operations and Security is being made available free to the public in part because of the support from the following underwriters: Beta Systems, Imanami Corp., Imprivata, Inc., and Quest Software. To download a complimentary copy of this report, please visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=3946

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com.

Contact Information: Media Contact: Carol Baroudi Aberdeen Harte-Hanks (617) 854-5287 Carol.Baroudi@Aberdeen.com