Duane Morris is a law firm with more than 800 attorneys in offices across the United States and internationally. The IT Team must provide employees with easy access to resources to stay productive, whilst ensuring this trusted access is kept secure.
The Challenge
Control and track Active Directory logins from both physical and virtual desktops
Like for many organizations, employees at Duane Morris are not always tied to one desk. They work around different offices and sometimes at home.
For obvious security and resources optimization reasons, the company doesn’t want certain employees to have several sessions open simultaneously. This has often resulted in forgotten sessions left opened. With desktop virtualization being deployed to the majority of users, it was important to correctly identify VDI sessions when considering and controlling the number of simultaneous connections.
Duane Morris also wanted accurate user session data to help support the HelpDesk team. Real-time information would help the team to find, identify and interact with a user’s session, and resolve any problems quickly.
Finally, a thorough reporting tool was needed to report on user session activity for HR and Management.
The Solution
An easy and effective solution that works seamlessly with VDI environments
On testing UserLock, the installation and configuration of the software took less than a day. They immediately saw UserLock would provide everything they needed.
It takes less than a day to install, the initial setup is straightforward and when it’s up and running, it does the job perfectly well.
Yuriy MATSEGORA
Network Administrator at Duane Morris
UserLock works seamlessly in a VDI environment with the option to identify VDI sessions as either workstation or terminal sessions. By choosing to consider VDI sessions as terminal sessions, Yuriy and his team could simply limit the number of simultaneous workstations to just 1, and offer additional terminal sessions.
To reduce any frustration for employees, an option with UserLock permits a user to close previously open sessions from the new logon attempt.
For the HelpDesk team, UserLock’s real time visibility of all session activity means they can immediately find any user session and if necessary, interact remotely whether it’s open or locked, to log-off, lock or reset settings.
Rather than using UserLock as a stand-alone tool, Duane Morris have fed UserLock data into their helpdesk solution (more on using webhooks). When a user calls, they type the user name into the helpdesk solution and, thanks to UserLock, are immediately able to see their real-time session activity. A click on the sessions offers the option to remotely control it.
Finally, the reporting tool is often being used by Duane Morris for investigation purposes. UserLock records and reports on all user connection events to provide a central audit across the whole network.
The Benefits
UserLock offers optimized resources and a secured network
UserLock has improved the way Duane Morris functions. In the first few months of using the software, Yuriy was able to see the value of the software when he saw the number of open/forgotten sessions had been significantly reduced.
UserLock has allowed the company to save a lot of time and to optimize workstation usage. The company was able to manage and secure access for every user on both Desktop and Virtual Environment, without obstructing employees or frustrating the IT department.
Thanks to the reporting tool, Duane Morris is now able to filter and sort the audit to show only the most pertinent results for the organization. This makes it easier for them to conduct HR investigations.
We’ve been using UserLock for years now. We love the fact that it provides session protection for everyone in the organization very easily. The reporting tool is great, it provides more visibility which enables the IT security team to perform accurate and detailed IT forensics to support HR investigations.
Yuriy MATSEGORA
Network Administrator at Duane Morris