Office workers will be fine.
It's the field people that are going to have it rough. Even the best 4G LTE stick won't matter if you're installing in the basement of a huge complex.
IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office
21–30 of 202 posts
Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office
#22Within a business, security has to be understood in the context of risk analysis. Will the measures taken damage the company more than the benefit of the increased security? In my eyes, banning storage media without a practical replacement is on the wrong side of the risk analysis equation. Sure, it's not desirable that files can be moved without full access control and auditing, but if people don't have a tool that…
With the rise of VPNs, fast home internet, and fairly ubiquitous public wifi along with laptops gaining enough power for most applications the question is what's the real use case that requires removable media that can't be accomplished with an internal FTP/network drive/email and using company laptops?
Offshore work, for instance.
Lots and lots of vessels have painfully slow satellite links - think Trust me, in such conditions you do not want to cough and ask whether you can download your training material off the corporate VPN...
(Heck, in many cases, shipowner policy prevents any third party computer from being connected to any onboard IT infrastructure, anyway.)
Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office
#23This is common at many semiconductor companies. Not only is it a ban at one specific semiconductor oem I know of, the usb-ports are disabled and the usb-ports on new issue computers are epoxied to prevent trying to use them. Semiconductor technology is one of the areas of global-technological competition which surely benefit from secrecy. For example, several years ago one of the c-level executives at this specific O…
Are cases locked / glued shut? It seems like it would be easy enough to connect a new usb header...
Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office
#24Product idea: a dongle with male & female USB connector, that you can place between USB drive and computer, and which catches possible security violations.
There are lots of forensics tools which block USB writes to prevent modification of data on drives under analysis.
However, the solution is to create tools that are easier to use and get the job done better than USB pen-drives. IBM seems to be all about the stick, no carrot. If they really enforce this (and as a former IBMer, I can tell you they are really long on pronouncements and very short on actual follow-through) I just foresee people bringing more laptops and multiple laptops around into places they previously would have brought a USB drive. E.g. if you can't easily move that Powerpoint from Laptop A to Laptop B because you're in some low-bandwidth hellhole, well, guess you're bringing both laptops along for the ride.
Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office
#25This is common at many semiconductor companies. Not only is it a ban at one specific semiconductor oem I know of, the usb-ports are disabled and the usb-ports on new issue computers are epoxied to prevent trying to use them. Semiconductor technology is one of the areas of global-technological competition which surely benefit from secrecy. For example, several years ago one of the c-level executives at this specific O…
Are cases locked / glued shut? It seems like it would be easy enough to connect a new usb header...
or unplug a mouse for 5 seconds
Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office
#26This is common at many semiconductor companies. Not only is it a ban at one specific semiconductor oem I know of, the usb-ports are disabled and the usb-ports on new issue computers are epoxied to prevent trying to use them. Semiconductor technology is one of the areas of global-technological competition which surely benefit from secrecy. For example, several years ago one of the c-level executives at this specific O…
How do you connect a keyboard or mouse?
Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office
#27Don’t FB and Goog already do this in practice if not completely enforced (i.e. epoxying the connectors). What’s the news about this?
This is also something very common in banking.
Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office
#28How will they work with no phones?
Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
With the rise of VPNs, fast home internet, and fairly ubiquitous public wifi along with laptops gaining enough power for most applications the question is what's the real use case that requires removable media that can't be accomplished with an internal FTP/network drive/email and using company laptops?
Offshore work, for instance. Lots and lots of vessels have painfully slow satellite links - think Trust me, in such conditions you do not want to cough and ask whether you can download your training material off the corporate VPN... (Heck, in many cases, shipowner policy prevents any third party computer from being connected to any onboard IT infrastructure, anyway.)
Working at sea; an Antarctic base; Mars; etc. is very much a niche for which specific exceptions can be made, but is irrelevant to almost all employers. In most cases security is the greater concern.
Re: IBM bans USB, SD cards, flash drives and portable devices from every office
#30Within a business, security has to be understood in the context of risk analysis. Will the measures taken damage the company more than the benefit of the increased security? In my eyes, banning storage media without a practical replacement is on the wrong side of the risk analysis equation. Sure, it's not desirable that files can be moved without full access control and auditing, but if people don't have a tool that…
A hybrid structure, that is, allowing the transfer of files through portable drives however only allowing it to be saved/read encrypted to approved devices through encryption keys managed on devices or through the network (Group Policy/etc) could work.