What's On Your Network?
An anonymous reader writes "According to a Whitedust article you may currently have more on your network than you think you do. The article claims that not much security attention is generally given to one of the most elusive aspects of computer security; that of physical connectivity." From the article: "Broadcast traffic is on the rise, with more suspicious user activity in the logs every day. Then one morning you get a call from your irate boss wanting to know why he no longer has a network connection, yet the employees - or students or whoever - down the hall are able to play games and visit porn sites, at blazing speeds no less."
Also, try to remember that most companies IT departments are still short staffed, and pro-active monitoring like network scanning, etc. gets put way on the back burner. I agree with you, and am just playing devils advocate here :)
if you don't run DHCP, a fun project is to throw a DHCP server out there and see who gets configured.
It's amazing all the little devices that show up. Switches, old print servers, workstations tucked away in a corner somewhere that time forgot....now that many of these networks are starting to push 10 years, it's like archeology.
Every now and then you find something that you just can't physically find. Lotsa fun.