Case Study - Societe Generale - Bank de Maertelaere

The SG Bank De Maertelaere, an investment bank, is part of the Private Banking network of the French banking group SG (Societe Generale). Its network spans 22 countries, with a major presence in France, Europe and Asia. In Belgium, the bank has 15 branches, 180 employees and about 70 advisors - specialists in discretionary estate management and investment strategies.

The SG Bank De Maertelaere uses two IBM iSeries servers for various accounting and banking applications, most of which have been developed internally. These applications can be accessed by both the head office and users from the branches. The users are connected to the head office through secure VPN connections. One of the iSeries servers is also used as an internet server. This gives clients access to a number of e-banking applications.

As a member of the Societe Generale, the Belgian bank, like everywhere in the financial sector, needs to abide by very strict internal security regulations. Even though the iSeries comes with extensive security features, it proved necessary to add extra security mainly at the level of TCP/IP communication, as more and more internal applications were using this communication protocol. At this level and in this particular environment, the iSeries standard security features were insufficient. For other applications, like the external connections to Reuters, EuroNext and e-banking applications using the same protocol, the security also needed to be reviewed.

After assessing the market and evaluating a number of leading products, Luc Christiaens, IT Manager of SG Bank De Maertelaere, decided to opt for the security product Bsafe/Global Security presented by SkillTeam. This was the only solution capable of fulfilling the bank's stringent requirements: water-tight security at all levels, ease of use, limited implementation time and an affordable price.

The implementation took place in stages. Bsafe/Global Security was first set-up in log mode, outside the production environment, to get an idea of the TCP/IP traffic generated by the various applications. On the basis of these results, the required security measures were introduced and tested one step at a time. Finally, everything was transferred to the production system. The implementation process went very smoothly, taking into account the vast number of applications involved.

We are particularly pleased with this solution", says Luc Christiaens. "Although the implementation took slightly longer than initially scheduled, today we have an efficient and user-friendly tool at our disposal, which allows us to manage the security of our iSeries environment and applications in an efficient way. The solution protects against both external and internal attacks and satisfies even the toughest internal audit requirements."

"Further, the solution is extremely user-friendly," says Gert Van Eetvelde, network architect and system manager. "Thanks to the remarkably good documentation, after the initial installation by SkillTeam's specialists, we were able to manage the largest part of the implementation ourselves. When specific problems occurred, we could easily call on SkillTeam's specialists for support. In some cases we even got support direct from Bsafe Information Systems."

Today, Bsafe/Global Security has been running in the production environment for quite some time, with no problems worth mentioning. Its ease of use is its main trump card. The interface allows for all log-ons to be efficiently analyzed and filters to be introduced easily. In addition, the system is especially fast.

However, there is more to come. In a later phase, Bsafe/Global Security extended graphical reporting possibilities will be implemented to simplify the internal Security Officer's work.

Thanks to the implementation of Bsafe/Global Security, SG Bank De Maertelare is assured, both now and in the future, of an "AAA" security - an absolute necessity in this sector.