Charter has grown through a series of acquisitions of smaller cable companies. Bringing the disparate systems and networks into compliance with enterprise security standards created a huge technical challenge for Charter’s IT department, which currently supports 15,000 employees.

Charter uses the IBM AS/400 and System i5 platform. Despite its excellent security record, fully securing the AS/400 environment requires an investment of time, expertise and tools to effectively configure and enhance these features. This is challenging for any company, but particularly for an IT department tasked with integrating legacy technology from recent acquisitions.

The IT department’s system administrators were well aware of the existing security gaps for critical company data, including financials, customer credit card and social security numbers, and sensitive HR information. They were the ones to urge management to seek a comprehensive security solution.

“It was driven from the bottom up rather than top down, and it was the prudent thing to do,” said Don Sternberg of Charter Communications’ IT group. “We purchased a solution in 2000, before Sarbanes-Oxley. We’re thankful we started back then, because it has really given us a leg up on later compliance requirements.”