Integrate PowerBroker for Unix & Linux with ServiceNow

Regulatory compliance has changed how IT operations and security teams do business. Customers and regulatory regimes demand that public and private sector organizations alike exercise higher security controls for systems that hold or deal with sensitive user information. Therefore, it is no longer acceptable for admins to operate on systems with patient, customer, client, card holder or other sensitive information without documented reasons for being on these systems. To automate and secure this access, organizations have adopted ticketing systems like ServiceNow to address requirements for authorizing access and documenting incidents. However, leveraging solutions to provide fine-grained privilege control on systems that are part of their compliance chain can enable an organization to authorize a user with policy to perform specific administrative actions without logging on as an administrator, thereby improving security. Policy-based privilege authorization and ticketing systems are not new solutions. But making ticket creation, validation and updating part of the policy for privilege elevation and authorization provides a more efficient way to solve these problems while never taking your hands off the keyboard. In this blog, I will provide links to videos that demonstrate some examples the integration between ServiceNow and PowerBroker for Unix & Linux can be configured to work.

Ways to use ServiceNow Incidents with PowerBroker for Unix & Linux

• Link recorded privileged session activity to incidents
• Link system admin activities to tickets
• Require policy to validate a ticket number or prompt a user to create a ticket when accessing certain systems
• Automatically update incidents as admins jump between systems and applications during troubleshooting
• Allow admins to update an incident from the Unix/Linux command line

Configuring PowerBroker for Unix & Linux to work with ServiceNow to address these use cases is easy to do. PowerBroker for Unix & Linux can be configured to do basic ticket validations as well as complex request workflows; and this can be done directly at the Unix/Linux command line.

Creating, Validating and Updating ServiceNow Incidents using PowerBroker for Unix & Linux

We have created walk-through videos of the following use cases:

• Creating a ServiceNow ticket from the Unix/Linux command line
• Validating a ServiceNow ticket in order to elevate a user’s permissions
• Updating a ServiceNow ticket from the Unix/Linux command line

Review the videos and accompanying walk-through guide, and then request to access the code for this integration.

Deep ServiceNow Use Case Integrations

This is but one example of use-case-driven integrations BeyondTrust has built with ServiceNow in mind. Watch for future blogs that demonstrate:

• Asset import and export
• Asset profiling for vulnerability assessments
• Ticket validation
• … and more

For more on how BeyondTrust can help you achieve policy-based privilege elevation and delegation across your Unix and Linux environment, contact us today.