NSE Cogencis Goes the PAM Route To Secure Critical Infrastructure and Boost Operational Efficiency

Summary

Leading market intelligence provider, NSE Cogencis partners with CyberArk to take an identity-first approach to securing access to critical infrastructure, enabling operational efficiency and improving compliance readiness.

Company profile

NSE Cogencis is a leading data, news and analytics provider to financial market professionals in India. Its flagship product, Cogencis WorkStation, enables these professionals to make informed trade and investment decisions by providing reliable data, news, and analytics. Its innovative data deed solutions allow financial institutions to ingest data from a myriad of sources through a single interface to power digital applications and mitigate both operational and regulatory risks.

Challenges

NSE Cogencis prime requirement was securing access to its servers and databases. They needed a robust privileged access management (PAM) solution but without the administrative burden of maintaining it. As a small team, they wanted to ensure their internal IT teams stayed focused on their core operations while having secure and seamless access to databases and critical infrastructure.

“We are a small unit. We needed to strength our security posture with comprehensive capabilities to easily manage and implement a modern PAM program. CyberArk’s SaaS solution perfectly aligns with our requirements. Given CyberArk’s leadership in identity security, we know we are in safe hands.”

– Milind Patil, VP of IT at NSE Cogencis.

NSE Cogencis needed a way to provide secure access to internal resources to their vendors without exposing passwords. A centralized solution to protect privileged credentials, isolate high-risk sessions and monitor access to data centers was critical to their goal of strengthening security posture without affecting user experience and reducing internal IT burden.

Solutions

With the CyberArk Identity Security Platform, NSE Cogencis left the heavy lifting of securing privileged access to us so they could focus on what they do best: bringing high-quality data, analytics, and information to financial market professionals.

NSE Cogencis prioritized their need to leverage security as an enabler to improve operational efficiencies without disrupting user experience. With CyberArk Privilege Cloud, which includes the Secure Infrastructure Access (SIA) component and Vendor PAM, NSE Cogencis achieved:

• Secure, native access to databases: The security team no longer has to worry about risks stemming from unauthorized access to their servers and databases. Every privileged activity is dynamically monitored and recorded for efficient incident response and meeting compliance needs. Just-in-time access is enabled through a VPN-less connection, allowing IT administrators to enjoy streamlined access to their targeted systems while multi-layered security controls protect the organization’s infrastructure.
• Zero Trust architecture: Implementing the principles of least privilege (PoLP) along with role-based access policies and credential vaulting and rotation paved the way for stronger defense against password-based attacks and risks stemming from unauthorized access while blocking the vertical and horizontal movement of an attacker within the organization.
• Hassle-free passwordless authentication: Remote users and external vendors are able to log in securely without passwords. This greatly improved their user experience while reducing the attack surface.

Results

CyberArk helped NSE Cogencis prioritize security without increasing IT overhead with its SaaS offering.

• Stronger security posture: Their high-risk databases and servers are now securely protected using intelligent privilege controls, like session monitoring and password protection. This also aids in meeting compliance and cyber insurance prerequisites.
• Enhanced user experience: Employees retain their native access to systems, safeguarded by in-depth security controls protect the infrastructure. Third-party vendors also benefit from seamless and secure access to internal resources required to do their jobs without relying on complex, breach-prone passwords.
• Increased visibility and control: CyberArk Privilege Cloud gave their security teams complete visibility into who’s accessing what and when, backed by comprehensive controls to thwart potential security incidents.

“Today, we are on an accelerated journey to offer a completely passwordless experience across the company. From struggling to manage credentials manually to getting rid of them – we have come a long way. CyberArk’s focus on securing every identity to protect our critical infrastructure not only strengthened our security posture but also helped in improving compliance readiness. The best part is that it’s SaaS-based and I don’t have to worry about operations.”

– Milind further added.

Key benefits

• Improved operational efficiency: A SaaS-based solution helped NSE Cogencis literally outsource the complexities of securing privileged access so the internal team could focus on their core priorities.
• Increased cyber risk reduction: By taking a strategic approach to secure access for all identities to their databases and servers, NSE Cogencis can confidently stay ahead of attackers in this evolving threat landscape.
• Streamlined audit and compliance processes: A security-first approach to privileged access management enables them to record and monitor every user activity which further helps in meeting compliance needs.