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iPod: Your Portable Corporate Hellraiser
MrAndrews writes "In an article on ZDNet UK, a Gartner says that "Companies should consider banning portable storage devices such as Apple's
iPod from corporate networks as they can be used to introduce malware or
steal corporate data" I recently came into contact with a similar policy at a consulting firm that was concerned that top-secret information might escape through my USB watch, and made me leave it at the front desk every day. In that case, I know it was absurd overkill ... but is this concern a legitimate concern? No more music on the way into the office?"
...or are you just glad to see me?
Seriously, the barn door's been open and the horse halfway to Topeka on this one for a while. Who needs an iPod? I've been carrying around virtually my entire business on one of these things for over a year. Sure, take away my music player, phone, key chain, watch, whatever, I'm a big boy and you pay me enough to play along, but at what point short of a strip search and replacing the pink-haired receptionist with a Brinks guard to watch over the stash does this policy become a smidge unwieldy?
(However, I do throw my whole-hearted support behind any policy which confiscates iPods (or sunglasses, for that matter) from any too-cool-for-the-room tool who doesn't stow them shortly after he enters the building...)
You know, I could bypass such security precautions very easily with a USB keyfob and tightly squeezed buttocks....
At one point the corporate machine-support staff tried to set up the following:
The sneaky bastards kept trying to steal my laptop, my PDA and my Nomad Jukebox to do this. I kept catching them and throwing them out of my cube (at one point, literally, as he refused to leave until he had formatted my laptop's hard drive and I had to roll him out in my chair and overturn it in the corridor).
Finally, they stopped that after they did this to an senior VP and erased the powerpoint presentation he had on his laptop. Heads rolled for THAT little debacle. The funny part was that his machine was already work-provided, he just didn't work in our building, so they didn't know him...
Brazil has decided you're cute.
You know, if your employees actually CARE about hooking up their iPods or other MP3 players at work, you should be more concerned about what your employees are actually DOING, as opposed to what data could be stolen. My iPod's Library is managed by my home machine, not my work machine, and the only reason I bring it inside is to keep it out of my hot car during the day. I don't even bring a cable that would be compatible.
I'll just burn the site licensed software to CD and take it home that way...
That's why I got the subdermal implant with 16mb flash and bluetooth. Just copy data to my stomach and walk out, search all you want.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
"What's to stop you simply encrypting the data, then wrapping it up or tagging it on the end of valid MP3 songs?"
Honesty. Dislike of prison. Attachment to receiving a paycheck. Fear of John Ashcroft.
Any number of things.
Seems to me the first step should be to disable USB on machines which do not need it in the BIOS then lock the BIOS....
Sounds like a good idea. This should keep those crum-bums from stealing data from my workstation with their USB dri- hey, why did my mouse stop working???