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An acquaintance of mine worked at the NSA and they also deal with this. He said during his first week he made the mistake of putting a CD-ROM with some officia
by varenc 6y ago
An acquaintance of mine worked at the NSA and they also deal with this.
He said during his first week he made the mistake of putting a CD-ROM with some official training materials into his work system. Within 10 minute two people showed up to stop him and investigate what was going on with his computer. It was fine in the end but he was seriously reprimanded by his boss.
When you can’t trust users, the answer isn’t just to give up! It’s to acknowledge their fallibility and create a system that doesn’t rely on 100% compliance. In this case that means having software that instantly reports when any external media is connected.
- i1856511 6y agoThis seems silly. Network admins can determine he inserted a CD and respond immediately in person - but nonetheless issue PCs with CD-ROMs and the ability to interact with removable media?
- stqism 6y agoIf it’s anything like the DoD does, the reason USB ports and CD drives aren’t physically disabled is because sometimes using authorized devices and media is required to perform your official duties.
- solipsism 6y agoAnd the same acquaintance described those NSA security protocols to you, who are now talking about them in a public forum. If your acquaintance actually did work for the NSA (God help us), he probably shouldn't have.