The THREAT of online security: How SAFE is our data?

Passwords, firewalls, encryption, two-factor authentication and access-control lists are among the tools available to information security professionals. Other options include system audits, patch management, network traffic monitoring and penetration testing. And a range of information security training programs and certifications are available to best use these tools.

However, despite this arsenal and well-trained professionals securing networks and systems, businesses cannot completely stop the flow of proprietary data, trade secrets and confidential information leaving their organizations and ending up in the hands of competitors, journalists and whistleblowers.

Employees must have access to proprietary information to perform their job responsibilities. The current attitude toward electronic data is that we must be able to access it from anywhere we are working and we should be able to share it with co-workers, business associates and vendors, such as, with the click of a mouse.

This ability to access and disseminate data quickly and easily is great from a productivity viewpoint, but frightening from a security perspective.

Explaining how much data can be removed by employees may cause management to support the control of who has the ability to copy data to a USB flash drive.

There are mechanisms that can be implemented to reduce data loss via these devices. On newer systems, it is possible to disable USB ports in the BIOS. While this limits data loss, it also prevents the use of other, helpful, devices. It is possible to modify the Registry (XP SP2) to make USB devices read only.

Create a new key, HKLM\SurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies. Then create a REG_DWORD entry called "Write Protect." Set the value to "1" and USB flash drives will now be read only.
Another option that might work for some organizations is to set a Group Policy Object modifying permissions to the file usbstor.sys (located at C:\Windows\system32\drivers on a Windows XP system), allowing access to "System" and perhaps "Administrator."

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