Courion's Compliance Manager for SharePoint Wins 2009 Product Innovation Award from Network Products Guide

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — May 18, 2009 — Courion® Corporation, leaders in access governance, provisioning and compliance, today announced that Network Products Guide, the information technology (IT) industry's premier resource for evaluating and selecting products, has named Courion’s Compliance Manager for SharePoint a winner of the 2009 Product Innovation Award. This award recognizes vendors from all over the world with ground-breaking products that are bringing essential changes and are setting the bar higher for others in all areas of IT.

Microsoft SharePoint® has become one of the most widely-used collaboration tools in the enterprise, but its minimal IT administration requirements can leave organizations vulnerable to significant security and compliance risks. In a recent survey conducted by Courion of more than 150 enterprise business managers, nearly 90 percent cited SharePoint as a source of concern for data theft, yet more than 60 percent said they do not have tools in place to monitor SharePoint usage, access or policy compliance.

"Innovation is a critical factor to delivering value to customers and staying competitive in the marketplace," said Rake Narang, editor-in-chief of Network Products Guide. "Innovative products such as Courion's Compliance Manager for SharePoint are helping organizations successfully govern SharePoint usage, balancing the productivity benefits of collaboration with the need to reduce security and compliance risks."

Through an identity-aware approach, Courion’s Compliance Manager for SharePoint enables IT administrators, security personnel and compliance auditors to reduce the risk of users gaining unauthorized access to data on SharePoint sites. The solution accomplishes this by:

• Discovering all SharePoint sites and users; 
• Verifying permission levels and conformance to internal security policies and industry best practices;
• Pinpointing sites that are in violation; and
• Providing the information needed for rapid remediation.

To read more about Compliance Manager for SharePoint, please visit: www.networkproductsguide.com/innovations/.

"Unlike other solutions, Compliance Manager for SharePoint identifies who has access to SharePoint sites, what level of access an individual has and how their access was granted. This access is then compared against policy and best practices to identify potential security risks," said Kurt Johnson, vice president of corporate development at Courion. "Courion's experience managing user access to mitigate security risks through the use of passwords, provisioning and roles is now being applied to the risks associated with SharePoint sites. The recognition of Compliance Manager for SharePoint by Network Products Guide and other industry influencers is further validation of the demand we’re seeing in the market to address SharePoint security and compliance issues."

Compliance Manager for SharePoint is part of Courion's unique Access Assurance approach to identity, access and compliance management, which ensures that only the right people have the right access to the right resources and are doing the right things. Access Assurance unifies Access Governance, Access Provisioning and Access Compliance in the most complex, heterogeneous environments. This comprehensive approach increases operational efficiency and transparency, strengthens security, and improves compliance, while delivering the industry’s fastest time to value and lowest total cost of ownership.

About Network Products Guide Awards

Network Products Guide is a media sponsor of Interop and Technosium Executive Alliance Forums engaging Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs). As industry’s leading technology research and advisory publication, it plays a vital role in keeping decision makers and end-users informed of the choices they can make in all areas of information technology. You will discover a wealth of information and tools in this guide including the best products and services, roadmaps, industry directions, technology advancements and independent product evaluations that facilitate in making the most pertinent technology decisions impacting business and personal goals. The guide follows conscientious research methodologies developed and enhanced by industry experts. To learn more, visit www.networkproductsguide.com

About Courion

Courion’s award-winning Access Assurance solutions are used by more than four hundred organizations and over 7.5 million users worldwide to quickly and easily solve their most complex identity and access management (password management, provisioning, and role management), risk and compliance challenges. Courion’s business-driven approach results in unparalleled customer success by ensuring users’ access rights and activities are compliant with policy while supporting both security and business objectives. For more information, please visit our website at www.courion.com, our blog at http://blog.courion.com/, or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Courion.