Colonial Bank Picks Quest Software

Quest Software, Inc. (www.quest.com), a provider of application, database and Windows management solutions, has been selected by Colonial Bank of Montgomery, Alabama, to provide solutions for locking down the company’s Active Directory environment to assist in regulatory compliance and to implement IT management best practices.  Three products from Quest were chosen:  Quest InTrust for Active Directory, Quest InTrust for Windows and Quest Reporter. 

Colonial Bank, a division of the Montgomery, Alabama-based Colonial BancGroup, a $20 billion bank holding company, has a Windows-based environment supporting 5,000 users in 275 locations. 

“We were looking for a solution that would help us respond to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act – legislation that requires us to make sure that non-public personal information about our customers is kept private,” explained Chad Smith, information security manager.  “Active Directory is a primary trigger point in the process for us.  We need the ability to audit access to our network authentication system.”

“With the Quest products, Colonial is not only able to report on the status of Active Directory, but to actually lock down the access levels into Active Directory at a granular level.” Smith added.

Real-time reporting on Active Directory is a key benefit for Colonial.  Before implementing the Quest products, the bank’s security team had to go through a multi-step change control process with its infrastructure group that could take more than a week to complete.

“Now we have Active Directory secured so no one can become a member of a particular group without going through a secured change control process,” Smith said.  “And we are automatically alerted every time someone is added to a high-sensitivity group. The Quest solutions helped us meet our compliance requirements, as well as implement some best practices that have a real impact within our company.”

Quest Software, Microsoft’s 2004 Global Independent Software Vendor Partner of the Year, provides solutions that simplify, automate and secure Active Directory, Exchange and Windows, as well as integrate Linux and Unix into the managed environment.  Quest’s Infrastructure Management products deliver comprehensive capabilities for secure management, migration and integration of the heterogeneous enterprise.