Mobile

Aug 21 2008   8:08PM GMT

IT Equipment search & seizure at the US borders

Posted by: Troy Tate
intellectual property, data loss, government, administration, awareness, blog, Data security, design, CIO, IT education, DataManagement, Mobile, Networking, internet, WAN, Security, forensics, Monitoring, Policy, online identity, policy enforcement, reporting, research, risk

I have recently been hearing some rumblings about this issue. I work for a firm with international locations and have travelled out of the country myself. So, this is a personal issue.

What I am referring to is the situation described in this article by David Jonas of The Transnational: Airport Laptop Seizures Debated in Washington. I know that I should have nothing to worry about if I do nothing wrong like any law abiding citizen of the world. However, what about the risk to an organization’s intellectual property?

Look at the comment …the laptop seizure policy is not analogous to physical searches of persons and belongings at airports: “Not only does the government get access to an unprecedented wealth of material with a laptop border search, but the government now has the ability to copy, store and analyze that information at its leisure. In traditional border searches, travelers carried their suitcases with them once they cleared customs. With laptop border searches, the government can keep everything in the computer in perpetuity.” So, who is responsible for the data once it is out of the traveller’s hands? What is the care & duty of the government with regards to a company’s intellectual capital?

This issue seems like a bureaucratic (and maybe totalitarian leaning - think “Big Brother”) nightmare! Who would be considered the appropriate person to review the data on a device? What is their liability if the device or data is damaged during their review?

I know I don’t have an easy answer to these nagging questions and it will take much better minds and skills than mine to work through the protection and liability issues for an organization. What mechanisms do you use to protect equipment and data during travel? Maybe this situation is a boon to shipping organizations. More people may be shipping their gear ahead of them when travelling across the border or use equipment at a remote site and transfer data across a network.

This situation is definitely one to watch and be concerned about as world citizens.

Thanks for your time. Let’s be good network citizens together & practice safe networking!

Aug 18 2008   7:11PM GMT

Did you see this? - Boot CD tutorial

Posted by: Troy Tate
recovery, bootcd, administration, diagnostics, howto, DataCenter, DataManagement, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft, troubleshooting, Mobile, Security, antivirus, forensics, Monitoring, packet capture, Performance, research, risk, tools

How often have you needed to recover a Windows system or use some type of boot disk? It’s not easy to create a bootdisk in the current versions of Windows (XP or Vista). There’s still a need for this capability. One source of how-to information can be found on the BootCD.US website. I recommend that you check out this fine resource and test this capability before you are in need and don’t have a lot of time to wade through a lot of how-to documentation.

Thanks for your time. Let’s be good network citizens together & practice safe networking!

Jun 17 2008   2:33PM GMT

Did you see this? - can MY browser do this?

Posted by: Troy Tate
diagnostics, Browsers, DataCenter, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mobile, Networking, Metrics, Performance, reporting, tools, web, website, www

Here’s a great website for testing your browser functionality and understanding the different features of each application.

Thanks for your time. Let’s be good network citizens together & practice safe networking!

Jun 17 2008   2:05PM GMT

Did you see this? - Online e-book library

Posted by: Troy Tate
administration, awareness, howto, CIO, Database, DataCenter, DataManagement, Development, Exchange, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mobile, Networking, IT education, LAN, network analysis, WAN, Oracle, SAP, Security, SQL Server, Storage, Virtualization, Metrics, Performance, research, web, website

Check out this digital online library for IT professionals. Bet you can’t read just one!

Thanks for your time. Let’s be good network citizens together & practice safe networking!

May 21 2008   1:18PM GMT

Cutting IT corners is not cutting IT

Posted by: Troy Tate
administration, anti-virus, Data security, CIO, DataCenter, DataManagement, Mobile, Security, antivirus, malware, Performance, reporting, tools, policy enforcement, Policy, Network Admission Control

How often does this happen to you? A user is going to travel to another company location and they want to checkout a laptop for the journey. However, they tell you the morning of the travel rather than in advance. So you do not have time to check out the device and ensure that it is really in good operating condition or up to date on patches and anti-virus.

As they say, “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine”. However, this is a real business situation and IT responds to the user’s needs.

We recently had a situation where IT staff at a site gave a laptop to a user for travel. The IT staff cut corners due to time restraints and not understanding the implication of following corporate standards. The outcome of this: the user was given administrative rights on the laptop and non-standard software was installed. The combination of these two events created almost the perfect storm when the user reached their destination at another company facility.

The traveling user’s device created a denial of service (DOS) since it was infected with a virus and was unprotected due to anti-virus protection that had not been updated for over a year. This DOS took down some manufacturing equipment so production stopped. This took away one of the three legs of the information security triad: AVAILABILITY. Users were unable to access the systems or services they needed to do their jobs. The user was also unable to use the travel laptop in this condition.

Needless to say, the problem device was removed from the network and corrective actions were taken.

Both sites now understand why we have the procedures in place that we do. Users are told that they will submit their travel laptop request at least one day in advance. IT will no longer add these users to the local administrators group on the travel laptops. Let’s hope that these actions help reduce the likelihood of this happening in the future.

Network admission control (NAC) is a good method of enforcing policy on devices attaching to the network. However, this takes significant investment in equipment, software, policy creation and enforcement activities. Well, maybe someday I will be able to move in this direction. In the meantime, communication, understanding and enforcement will help all involved, users, IT and management.

Thanks for your time. Let’s be good network citizens together & practice safe networking!