BFSI · East Africa

I&M Bank hardens privileged access across four countries.

BeyondTrust PAM secures privileged users across Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda.

// Client overview

I&M Group is a leading corporate group in East Africa with a major presence across banking, insurance and real estate, offering personal, business and alternate banking through its presence in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Mauritius and Uganda. Founded in 1974, I&M Bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of I&M Group and a publicly listed company on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, operating as four independent units across East Africa.

With a strong presence in four countries, a huge branch network and a large customer base, the client faced growing cybersecurity challenges and complexity in managing privileged access. The inherent risk from poor privileged-password practices - credentials embedded in devices and never changed, shared or reused across systems - was high, creating the need for a robust PAM solution offering asset and vulnerability management, behavior analytics and operational efficiency while meeting regulatory requirements.

Sector

BFSI

Region

East Africa

Engagement

Cyber transformation

Services

Privileged Access Management (PAM) · Password vaulting & management · Privileged session monitoring · Multi-factor authentication · Least-privilege enforcement

Technologies

BeyondTrust Password Safe · BeyondTrust Remote Support (TOTP MFA) · BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management · BeyondTrust Privileged Session Management

// Key challenges

Risks to security: with many privileged accounts across geographies, monitoring activity closely and enforcing controls was difficult, exposing sensitive resources to unauthorized access.

Lack of real-time visibility and alerting: without centralized visibility into privileged-user activity, timely detection of suspicious activity and proactive response were challenging.

Error-prone manual passwords: existing password management was manual and error-prone, making a secure environment hard to maintain.

Password vaulting, MFA, real-time session monitoring, disaster recovery / emergency access, and comprehensive auditing and reporting were all required.

// The solution · highlights

Inspira's experts reviewed I&M Bank's security architecture and network across the four locations, derived the SOW, PQ and TQ, and designed a highly reliable architecture offering 24x7x365 availability, partnering with BeyondTrust for the PAM solution - scalable to remote employees and third-party/vendor monitoring.

Password management: BeyondTrust Password Safe provided secure discovery, auditing and monitoring of privileged credentials, eliminating shared and reused passwords.

Real-time session monitoring: Password Safe gave visibility of all privileged credential activity and sessions for compliance and forensic review.

Multi-factor authentication: BeyondTrust Remote Support used time-based one-time passwords (TOTP) to add protection even if passwords were compromised.

Least-privilege access: BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management applied advanced application control, condensing the attack surface and eliminating lateral movement by elevating privilege only to trusted applications.

Monitoring, auditing and reporting: BeyondTrust Privileged Session Management detected suspicious activity and generated detailed reports for regulatory compliance.

// Outcome & benefits

Enhanced security posture: privileged users, critical assets and sessions were secured across all four locations.

Easy password management: automated reporting and audit capabilities made privileged credentials easy to audit and manage.

Reduced risk of unauthorized access and credential misuse through vaulting, MFA and least-privilege enforcement.

Streamlined regulatory compliance through comprehensive auditing and reporting across the four banks.

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I&M Bank hardens privileged access across four countries.

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