A holistic approach to information system access management at Mairie de Vincennes

Could you introduce yourself and your IT environment ?

I am Francis Le Croller, Operations Manager at Vincennes Town Hall, where I have worked for many years and am now approaching retirement. At Vincennes Town Hall, we use a wide range of tools to support our staff and residents in their daily lives. These tools are developed and managed by software publisher partners. Our IT environment is primarily built around these tools.

When did you start considering improvements to your infrastructure's IT security ?

We have been observing a rise in cyberattacks for several years now, particularly targeting local authorities and healthcare facilities. Ransomware and other malicious attacks became a topic of growing concern. Vincennes Town Hall therefore began to focus more seriously on information system security.

Until then, when providers and partners needed to intervene, they would contact our department, which would open a specific access point allowing them to work on the relevant equipment on a case-by-case basis.

What approach did you adopt ?

The first step was to implement a VPN to protect all our equipment and connections. As an aside, this security measure was already in place at the time of the Covid pandemic and the first lockdown, which made that period considerably smoother and more secure for us compared to many other public administrations that were behind at the time. We were able to roll out remote working as seamlessly as possible despite the circumstances.

We then had the good fortune of being approached at just the right moment : we had a need, and Rubycat contacted us at precisely that time to present the PROVE IT solution.

We therefore requested a product demonstration quite promptly.

How did things progress from there ?

We immediately understood that this was the solution we needed. It appealed to us straight away and met our expectations in every respect.

It is a well-suited product that was presented to us at exactly the right time. Everything then fell into place very quickly and easily. We were rapidly able to test the solution directly with our partners and providers, and they adopted it immediately.

Would you recommend the solution ?

PROVE IT is, for us, a product that continuously evolves and works very well. All of our partners are highly satisfied with it.

Everything has been well thought through and well received. A well-designed, well-deployed product, a win-win solution that our partners had no difficulty adopting.

Furthermore, it is a solution that requires very little administration time, which is essential for an organisation like ours. PROVE IT represents less than one hour of administration per month for us.

Security audit at Vincennes Town Hall

Vincennes Town Hall was the target of a ransomware attack a few months ago. Fortunately, the administration environment, and in particular the backups, was not compromised. The entire system was restored to full operation very quickly.

Following this attack, an investigation was conducted and a comprehensive organisational audit was commissioned. The implementation of the VPN and the PROVE IT solution were highlighted as two particularly strong points in the information system's security posture, and were widely commended during the audit. This subsequently enabled us to access additional subsidies to continue strengthening our information system.

What would you add to encourage other local authorities to take the step towards a solution like PROVE IT ?

First and foremost, as mentioned, PROVE IT requires very little administration time for this type of solution. It was also very readily adopted by our various partners.

And finally, the France Relance plan facilitates the acquisition of this type of solution by part-funding the project. We can therefore only encourage other local authorities to implement this solution.