Andrew McIntosh wrote:
<snip>
> 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.
Which obvious reasons?
The company has less than 100 employees, they probably won't be passing
CD's around much. Disable/unplug/remove CD drives and floppies and have
all data to be added to the network go through checking by a relevant
competent staff member.
There are very few reasons to use external media on a connected network
like this. The admin can and should manage all software installs, Data
can be passed around over the network. On the rare occasion that
something absolutely has to be on physical media, let it go through IT
for checking first.
> 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.
User should not ever have the right ability or wish to install programs!
Everything they need to do their job will have been approved by IT and
will be in the base OS build, anything to be added to that will need to
be evaluated and approved, when it has been it again will be installed
by It and added to the build process. If you give your users access to
do this on a broad scale you are asking for trouble, on any sized network.
> 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.
Yes it can be done, but it should be in addition to removing the devices
completely whenever possible.
This is a subjective question, it relies entirely on the business at
hand and who is in charge of policy making decisions. If you are the
admin and/or in charge of network security. It is your role to encourage
the most secure option you can, it's then the responsibility of the
users to ask you to relax some policies for their convenience. In most
businesses this trade off is inevitable, but you must, as the security
professional on-site, strive for the absolute best practise.
Set the policies of the system on a per role basis, if someone needs to
do alot of work on external media give them access to the devices, those
that don't disable it. If someone want's access to the CD drive to
listen to their music, then it *might* be too much of a risk to the
network to allow this. You have to analyse what sort of impact
malicous/accidental access to the users accounts has on the network and
you also have to consider the users competency.
--
With Regards..
Barrie Dempster (zeedo) - Fortiter et Strenue
blog: http://zeedo.blogspot.com
site: http://www.bsrf.org.uk
CA: www.cacert.org
"He who hingeth aboot, getteth hee-haw" - Victor (Still Game)
Received on Mar 31 2005
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