Zain Group Calls on Imprivata for Secure Employee Access and Password Policy Management

Deploys Single Sign-on and Strong Authentication Management for Employees Across 16 Countries

LEXINGTON, MA - February 16, 2009 - Imprivata^®, Inc., the converged authentication and access management company, today announced that Zain Group, a leading mobile telecommunications company operating across the Middle East and Africa, has chosen Imprivata OneSign to provide strong authentication and password management for more than 7,300 employees. This service will be rolled out at the operator’s head offices in Bahrain, followed by offices in 15 African countries.

“Traditionally, our users required access to applications that were protected by user name and password combinations. However, this led to users forgetting their credentials, and consequently calling the IT helpdesk for support,” said Mohammed Rafi, Group Chief Information Officer for Zain. “We needed an identity management solution that would ensure security policies could be enforced for all staff access requests without requiring any modification of our applications or existing directories.”

To deliver this capability, Zain chose Imprivata OneSign. “OneSign’s appliance-based identity management solution provided us with the end user functionality that we needed in a quickly deployable platform. In addition, we now have the ability to produce a complete reporting trail for all user activity and application access requests, which will allow our internal audit team to show that we are following best practice across our operations,” continued Rafi.

Following the decision to implement OneSign, Zain is rolling out enterprise single sign-on for employees across its African operations, a process which began with Tanzania in November 2008. The service will be rolled out in another 14 countries, including Nigeria, Kenya and Zambia. Overall, the program to provide authentication and access management to users will be completed in Q1 2009.

“Organizations today have ever-increasing volumes of users and applications to support, and spending time on tasks such as password management and application access tracking simply gets in the way of the business,” said Omar Hussain, CEO, Imprivata. “Companies ranging from the SMB to large multinationals like Zain are using OneSign for a simpler route to managing user authentication, which enables employees to be more productive while adhering to audit and compliance demands.”

Imprivata OneSign consists of three specific modules—OneSign Authentication Management (AM), which increases network security by replacing network access passwords with strong authentication options; OneSign Single Sign-On (SSO), which quickly and effectively solves password management, security and user access issues; and OneSign Physical/Logical, which integrates network and building access systems to provide a single consolidated user identity. These three modules can be licensed individually or as one complete solution, allowing each organization to adopt the needed level of security as needed—all with a simple license key upgrade.

About Zain
Zain is a leading emerging markets player in the field of telecommunications aiming to become one of the top ten mobile operators in the world by 2011. Zain was established in 1983 in Kuwait as the region’s first mobile operator. Since 2003, it has grown significantly, becoming the 4th largest mobile network in the world in terms of geographic presence with a footprint in 22 countries spread across the Middle East and Africa providing mobile voice and data services to 56.3 million active customers (as at 30 September 2008).

Zain operates in the following countries: Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. In Lebanon, the company manages the network on behalf of the government operating as mtc-touch.

The Zain brand is wholly owned by Mobile Telecommunications Company KSC, which is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (Stock ticker: ZAIN).

For more, please visit www.zain.com or email info@zain.com

About Imprivata
Imprivata is the converged authentication and access management company. Its OneSign platform helps organizations safeguard enterprise information assets by enabling secure employee access to networks and applications—improving user productivity and convenience, while reducing the time, risk and cost of complying with data privacy and protection regulations. OneSign has received top ratings in product reviews throughout the industry and has been awarded numerous accolades from leading publications including Information Security, InfoWorld and SC Magazine. Headquartered in Lexington, Mass., Imprivata is one of the fastest growing IAM companies with more than 650 customers and over 200 partners around the world.For more information, visit http://www.imprivata.com.

Imprivata is a registered trademark of Imprivata, Inc. in the USA and other countries. All other product or company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.