Information Security On An Olympic Scale

jeffy124 writes: "Wired is running a story about the man in charge of securing the computer systems at the Salt Lake City Olympic Games next February. Matt McClung discusses how he's withstanding an 'overhype' in the media on the possibility getting his systems cracked and what he's doing to prevent it in the first place. With 4500 PCs and 550 servers, that shall be a daunting task, especially given the reliability problems at the '96 Atlanta games."

Comments

Is this the right man for the job?

[gmhowell]

McClung said the Salt Lake City Olympic computer system, comprised of 4,500 PCs and 550 servers, is the most complex network he's ever seen.

Urmmm... I work in a small company (50 employees) so I've never seen really big networks. But somehow, 2000 computers doesn't seem like that compares in any way to various military and Fortune 500 networks. By an order or two of magnitude.

So, is somebody who has never seen (let alone worked with) this many machines the right guy for the job? Sounds like he is in over his head a bit.

(Now, if this IS an incredibly huge/large network, please bitchslap me)

Olympic Security in Atlanta was a joke

[CokeBear]

Olympic Security in Atlanta was a joke.
I was a relatively low level voluteer, assigned to a specific area at a single venue. My badge said as much in codes that every security person was supposed to know.

I was able to access behind the scenes areas, chat with athletes and celebrities, watch events at other venues, all without a single question from a security person. (Most of them were volunteers too). Even when I was out of my uniform, all I had to do was flash my badge and I was never denied access to even the most sensitive areas. Part of it has to do with attitude of course. If you act like you belong, they assume you do, and I consider myself a Master of Social Engineering, but even then, I should have at least been questioned when I walked into the athletes change area. (There were none there).

I'm pretty sure that Salt Lake City will be more secure, if only because of all the money being poured into it now. But what they need to realize is no matter how many $B you spend on security, you still need people with the balls to say "I'm sorry sir, your badge doesn't allow you in this area" and to stick to it.