Best Practices Checklist

This section of the Vendor Privileged Access Management (VPAM) server reviews and reports the status of several system settings. Each option displays whether or not the recommended setting has been met. An overall score is assigned based on the number of passing checks.

The administrator is allowed to accept the current score, or fix the settings with a click on the individual checks.

Administrators can also select the individual compliance levels they want their server to comply to, between different compliance regulations in the System Settings page. These recommendations up to date with the latest legislation.

The available checklists are:

• HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
  Learn more about HIPAA.

• PCI: Payment Card Industry
  Learn more about PCI.

• NERC: North American Electric Reliability Corporation
  Learn more about NERC.
  

• CJIS: Criminal Justice Information Services (FBI)
  Learn more about CJIS.

Best Practices Reference

The Best Practices Checklist page contains the Report Summary Score and the Best Practices Checklist.

The Report Summary Score increases or decreases depending on your configuration's compliance with Best Practices you selected in the System Settings. The Best Practices Checklist details your current settings compared to the Best Practices you selected in the System Settings.

To improve the score, a System Administrator can click on the Fix link to any changes. The Report Summary Score updates accordingly.

The following table describes what each line in the Best Practices Checklist refers to.

Category	Check	Description
Architecture	Redundant SMTP	VPAM uses SMTP to send emails under a number of circumstances and recommends having a backup mail server. Up to two backup mail servers can be added.
	Redundant Gateways	VPAM supports fully redundant high availability, pooled, and failover gateway deployments. Pooled gateways introduce a number of benefits to your deployment, including both load-balancing and redundancy. Pooled gateways synchronize applications between multiple gateways, load balance connections, and reduce resource usage on individual gateways servers. A failover gateway will automatically take over in the event of a disaster or loss of connectivity, with no manual migration required.
	Version	Stable VPAM version (9 months or newer). Read our Release Notes to discover the latest versions of VPAM.
	SSL Certificate Expiration	SSL Certification Expiration date is provided here to help customers prepare to update the SSL Certificate.
	Notification List	Anyone on this list will be notified when changes are made in the UI that may decrease your Best Practices score. Read System Messages for more information.
	Client Anti-virus Health	Checks the status of the installed Anti-Virus software on the user's Windows desktop. The Connection Manager can check the status of the Security Health Provider (anti-virus) and decide whether or not to allow the connection based on the reported status. Configure this option by contacting your Support agent.
	Disaster Recovery	Ensures that in the event of a full site failure, SecureLink can still operate by leveraging the backup node.
Identification	Internal Employment Verification	Email verification is enabled for all internal users.
	External Employment Verification	Email verification is enabled for all Vendors and Vendor representatives.
Authentication	Important: If you are using the Active Directory or SAML integration, the password settings apply only to external users (vendor representatives, or other users with local authentication).
	Password Length	Ten (10) or more characters are recommended for password length.
	Password Character Set	Three (3) or more sets of alpha, ALPHA, numeric, and symbols are recommended
	Password Dictionary Set	This is tied to "Ban frequently used passwords" under Password Settings. CJIS requires that passwords are not dictionary words. Enabling this setting will prevent a user or vendor rep from creating a password that is just a single dictionary word.
	Password Expiration	Set the password expiration policy. 90 days or less is recommended.
	Password history restriction	Set a number of last passwords that are allowed. Restricting the last ten (10) password entries is recommended.
	Two-Factor for Internal Users	Enforce email verification or Mobile Authentication.
Authorization	Minimum Access Windows	This field will be flagged if any applications are permanently enabled with no end date or access schedule being utilized. Using access expiration or an access schedule for applications is recommended.
	Acceptable Terms and Conditions	Vendor Rep Terms and Conditions are enabled and configured under System Messages.
	Inactive Accounts Expiration	Disable inactive users after 90 days (both AD and local accounts).
	Inactive Vendor Rep Accounts Expiration	Disable inactive vendor reps after 90 days or less of inactivity.
	Session Expiration	An auto-logout is set after a configurable amount of idle time.
	Inactive Applications	Disable inactive applications (not connected to in 180 days or more) that currently do not have an access expiration.
	Public Domains	Delete or disable all accounts with public domain email addresses.
Configuration	Support Contact Information	Provide support contact information under System Messages.