Case Study: Global Home Appliances Manufacturer achieves secure, audited remote IoT maintenance without shared "golden keys" with SSH.COM PrivX Privileged Access Management

Global IoT Device Provider Secures Maintenance Operations with PrivX® Privileged Access Management

Global Home Appliances Manufacturer, a Europe‑headquartered appliance maker with €10B+ turnover, 50,000+ employees and 35+ factories, faced a serious security challenge: QA and service staff worldwide were using a shared “golden key” to access IoT devices, making it impossible to verify users, prevent key copying, or control unauthorized access. After unsuccessful in‑house attempts, the customer selected SSH.COM’s PrivX Privileged Access Management to solve the problem.

SSH.COM deployed PrivX starting at headquarters and then rolled it out globally, vaulting the golden key, enforcing AD‑based role assignments, and providing audited, role‑based access so engineers can perform maintenance without ever seeing credentials; audit logs are integrated (e.g., to Splunk) and sessions can be recorded. The implementation reduced key exposure from hundreds of users to only a few QA admins, eliminated shared‑credential handling, delivered a fast, successful PoC and phased rollout, and strengthened security while preserving operational flexibility.