Systancia, the French champion of cybersecurity and virtualization

Article published in Les Echos, June 15th, 2018.

At a time when specialists are predicting largescale and increasingly frequent cyber-attacks, Systancia provides a range of appropriate solutions. Founded in 1998 by Christophe Corne, the company is not only a pioneer in the field of cyber security, but is also one of the world leaders in desktop virtualization. A possibility for its customers to streamline and drastically reduce their costs. Today, Systancia is the only software publisher to combine these two activities in this market.
Among its many solutions, it offers the only qualified product recommended by the ANSSIAgence Nationale de la Sécurité des Systèmes d’Information. The National Cybersecurity Agency of France (ANSSI) is a French government organisation reporting to the Secretary General for Defence and National Security (SGDSN), who is responsible for advising the Prime Minister in the exercise of his functions in the field of defence and national security. ANSSI is responsible for cybersecurity issues in France. The ANSSI provides its expertise and technical skills to organisations (administrations or companies) with a reinforced mission to the operators of vital importance (OIV), operating in areas of activity that are sensitive for the very integrity of the country and the population (health, regal, economic and technological fields). The scope of the Agency's action concerns the computer population as a whole. In particular, it intervenes in the following areas - monitoring and reacting to any incident relating to cybersecurity, - in the development of products for civil society, - as an information and advisory body, - as a training organisation, - as a reference organisation for the labelling of trusted products and service providers... (Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d’information), the National Cybersecurity Agency of France, in the technical field of “Identification, authenticationPrimary or secondary authentication Authentication allows a user to guarantee his or her identity before accessing a resource or service. Primary authentication will give user access to the workstation (Windows login). Several authentication modes can be made available to users: login and password, smart or contactless cards, biometrics, mobile ... To classify an authentication mode it will be enough to rely on the principles of the 3 factors: "What do I have? ", " What do I know? ", " Who am I? ». The answers provided to these questions make it possible to say for a given authentication method whether it is "simple" or "double" factor. Secondary authentication is the access of a user to an application from an open session on a workstation. The application can be of any type: web, client-server, local to the workstation or external...... and access control”. IPdiva Secure has thus received the First Level Security Certificate then the Elementary Level Qualification and is used by administrations and operators of vital importance (OVI). It has also been certified France Cybersecurity since last year.
Systancia’s latest innovation, IPdiva Cleanroom, has been designed specifically for information systems administrators, key elements of any company, who are subject to increasingly demanding requirements (including a confidentiality obligation). These specialists have access to the company’s most sensitive data from the same computer running standard user activities. This approach, recommended by the ANSSI, has inspired the idea of going further by separating these two activities from the same computer, via a secure virtual desktop strictly dedicated to system administrator activities. “Immune against viruses, untouched by attacks, this single-use virtual desktop is renewed at each user launch, like a sealed airlock,” says Christophe Corne.

Read more here: Article Les Echos