[November 27, 2012]

Citizens Bank of Forsyth County Selects Safe Systems for Critical Applications Patch Management

Safe Systems, recent winner of the BankNews Innovative Solutions Award, and national leader in compliance-centric IT support and hosted services exclusively to financial institutions, today announced Citizens Bank of Forsyth County has implemented Safe Systems' Critical Application Patching Service (CAPS) to reinforce security measures for critical applications and automate a previously manually intensive patching process. CAPS pushes updates to Adobe (News - Alert) Reader, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Flash, Java and QuickTime.

According to a recent IT Threat Evolution Report from Kaspersky Labs, Microsoft, and more specifically, Windows, is no longer the weakest link in software security. Adobe flaws now comprise the vast majority of the most common vulnerabilities. Due to this increase in third-party threats, Cumming, Ga.-based Citizens Bank of Forsyth County opted to automate its critical patch management process, gaining efficiencies in the back of the house; including a significant reduction in time spent manually patching all systems within the bank, increased security and overall compliance posture.

"We needed a technology solution and provider that would manage the constantly evolving threat landscape and address the questions we didn't know to ask, said Marilyn Brooks, Vice President Operations and Network Administrator of Citizens Bank. "Since 1997, our bank has moved network management, disaster recovery, data vaulting, the email exchange system, compliance support, antivirus and email encryption to a hosted environment with Safe Systems. The most recent move to CAPS will now save the bank roughly 2 weeks per year in manually patching its 63 PCs/servers. Additionally, the complete cloud solution through Safe Systems has saved the bank at least two to three full-time IT staff hires."

CAPS is a comprehensive patching process that delivers quick, accurate and secure patch updates to all workstations and servers running Adobe Reader, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Flash, Adobe Flash for Internet Explorer, Java Runtime Environment, and QuickTime. Safe Systems' CAPS mitigates the multiple risks of running unpatched programs and automates the time-consuming process of testing and deploying new patches. CAPS complements Safe Systems' automated Microsoft (News - Alert) patching solution, NetComply.

According to the most recent statement from the FFIEC on outsourced cloud computing, due to the increased legal, regulatory and security risks, a financial institution must select a cloud computing service provider that is familiar with the financial industry, or additional controls may be necessary to remain compliant. Citizens Bank is now well positioned to meet regulator's expectations by partnering with a vendor that provides cloud and network support services exclusively to financial institutions.

"Citizens Bank has been able to nearly eliminate these threats they were facing as a symptom of out-of-date applications," said Danny Johnston, CEO for Safe Systems. "Across our overall client base, we've seen malware incidents drop by as much as 90 percent when we implement CAPS. Previously, many administrators had no strategy for updating these third-party applications and machines were left vulnerable while they tried to determine the most effective way to get these patches installed."

About Safe Systems

Founded in 1993, Safe Systems is the national leader in providing compliance-centric IT solutions exclusively to financial institutions. As a technology partner, and recent winner of the BankNews Innovative Solutions Award, Safe Systems has worked with over 600 financial institutions and manages over 25,000 network devices nationwide. Safe Systems' scalable and cost effective solutions include IT managed services, compliance solutions, business continuity and disaster recovery, hosted email, data vaulting, network design and installation, security services, and IT and compliance training. Safe Systems helps financial institutions to significantly decrease costs, increase performance, and improve compliance posture. For additional information about Safe Systems, Inc., please visit http://www.safesystems.com or call 877.752.0550.

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