Courion Corporation, the leader in identity and access management for access risk, today announced that the American Red Cross will use the Courion Access Risk Management Suite to streamline operations as part of an organization-wide transition to the Microsoft Office 365 cloud computing platform.
The American Red Cross will use the Access Risk Management Suite to provision Office 365 email for full-time employees, contract workers and volunteers. Email is a key communication tool for the Red Cross as it organizes disaster response, supplies nearly half the nation’s blood supply, teaches lifesaving skills, provides international humanitarian aid, and supports military members and their families. This project will leverage a cloud-based email solution, streamlining operations and reducing system costs and maintenance. Office 365 will allow the Red Cross to distill the many varieties of email addresses at chapter offices to create a single address for each worker. When the project is complete, the Red Cross will have a single global communication system for reaching staff and affiliates quickly. The Red Cross is currently one of the largest Office 365 implementations.
“The national organization and the chapters built out their IT infrastructures and added users, growing our email systems independently which created a lack of consistency across the organization. As we move from a franchise model to a regional chapter model, it’s important everyone is operating on the same platform,” said Suzanne Hall, the American Red Cross’ Chief Information Security Officer. “The Courion Access Risk Management Suite will enable us to improve security and reduce access risk across the organization by managing user access to a single email platform.”
The Access Risk Management Suite provides a simple and fast time-to-value alternative to complex, expensive conventional identity and access management (IAM) solutions. Automated and configurable for rapid implementation based on the best practices of more than 500 customers, the Access Risk Management Suite delivers faster time to value and lower total cost of ownership that other IAM solutions. It integrates key IAM functions such as identity and access governance, user provisioning, and password management. It is available as on-premise software or as a pay-as-you-go SaaS (software as a service) cloud offering called CourionLive™.
“As organizations move mission-critical applications and data onto cloud-based platforms they must apply the same level of identity and access management requirements as they do for internal applications. They also need to understand who is responsible for managing identities, how to ensure the right user access is available, and the proper mix of preventative and detective controls needed to best secure their cloud environment and minimize potential user access risk,” said Kathy Pugh, vice president of services at Courion. “The American Red Cross is demonstrating how to get the most business value from their move to the cloud by automating their provisioning and clearly associating a specific user with a specific email address.”