Patent ID: 8707397

Claim:
A system for controlling access by technical support personnel to a company's computing device, the system comprising: a thin client configured to send identification information from the technical support personnel, the technical support personnel and the thin client being located in an access control center (ACC) that is physically and logically isolated from the company's computing device; a proxy server configured to receive communications from the thin client and forward the communications to an ACC server; the ACC server configured to: authorize the technical support personnel to request a first approval from an authentication server after the ACC server receives the identification information from the proxy server; request the first approval from the authentication server; obtain the first approval from the authentication server for the technical support personnel, the first approval authorizing the technical support personnel to request a second approval from the authentication server and to access a virtual desktop wherein the virtual desktop functions as a workstation device; connect the thin client to the virtual desktop in a first session; obtain the second approval from the authentication server for the technical support personnel after obtaining the first approval, the second approval authorizing the technical support personnel to access the company's computing device; the virtual desktop configured to automatically establish a remote access session for the technical support personnel from the virtual desktop to the company's computing device after obtaining the second approval wherein the virtual desktop is provided by a virtual desktop manager that provides a number of virtual desktops to a number of technical support personnel; and the company's computing device.