Re: Basic Windows Security Question

[Zaven <zaven () sonic net>]

If you disable the USB port, people will find another way to sneak data in.

In fact, no matter what you do someone may guess/bribe/steal/coerce a 
password to your systems. Maybe the best safeguard is a good detection 
and response plan, so you know when the inevitable does happen and can 
act intelligently to minimize the damage.

^Z

Andrew McIntosh wrote:
> Hello Everybody,
>
> I am curious to see the different suggestions for this scenario:
>
> Suppose you have a small company of less than 100 employees. One of the
> employees likes to bring his work home on occasion. He does so using a
> USB thumb drive. One day he catches a [virus, worm, Trojan, spyware,
> anything you can think of] at home and it winds up on his thumb drive,
> which he in turn brings to the company network.
>
> The company certainly should have anti-virus software in place, which
> would fix that problem. But what if he unknowingly loads a key logging
> program that could capture private customer information? What do you
> suggest? Here is what I could think of so far:
>
> Disable USB Port - That would solve the particular problem and create
> other problems. For instance, substitute the thumb drive with a floppy
> disk or CD. For obvious reasons you don't want to disable those as well.
>
> Restrict user permissions - That could potentially prevent a program
> from installing itself, but it would also cause the user some grief if
> they need to install programs themselves, or even do simple things like
> changing personal settings.
>
> Security Policy - Haven't looked into this yet, but maybe there is a way
> to prevent the use of thumb drives and other specific devices through
> security policy.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Thanks!
>
> ====================
> amcintosh () ntad com
> ====================


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