Security guards check laptop, what about other portables?
Posted on March 27, 2008
Filed Under Portable Devices |
A company may consider their Network professionals as the top people in Information Security and Security Guards as the low level professionals. But sometimes it’s better to take second looks; take this scenario for instance -”The Security Guards are the first line of defense for any company”. They are responsible for what goes in and out. Every Network Administrator knows one basic truth: “Even though they equip the Company’s Network system with state of the art technology, it could be breached if the network is physically accessible by the intruder, provided the intruder should equip with proper tools”. Many internal breaches occur when insiders copy company data to removable media, or bring in removable media from which they install programs or malicious code into the network.
So it should be the responsibility of the Security Guards to prevent the entry of external removable media such as floppy disks, flash drives, USB/Firewire hard drives, CD/DVD burners, and so forth into company premises. “But how aware are they!” In my opinion the Security Guards must be a part of the every Information Security awareness program conducted in their company. It is also important that every company should have a security check policy equally applicable to every single employee.
So, is your security guard part of the security awareness program? The following check lists will help?
- Can they distinguish between a USB Drive and a Mobile phone with a camera?
- Has the management given them confidence to check baggage of visitors and/or employees?
HTH,
Asok
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4 Responses to “Security guards check laptop, what about other portables?”
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4 Responses to “Security guards check laptop, what about other portables?”
Dear Mr. Ramachandran,
I appreciate you for posting such an interesting topic, that most of us are unaware of or paying little attention to. I agree with you, most of the facts you explained here. Most of these types of security breaches are the outcomes of lack of awareness of security guards in these matters. But I disagree with you, the solution you proposed, “The security guard should attend all the information security awareness program”. As of my best belief and knowledge, the security awareness program we conduct must have a focused audience. Hence we must conduct a focused training session for these “first line of defense people” and thereby achieve our goal.
Do you think, the training of security guards will solve these issues?
How many of us are having the patience to undergo these kinds of checks at the Reception?
I hope, the above question will answer the first participants for the training program you suggest
Jith,
if somebody really wants to break into something , they will achieve it at any cost.
What Ramachandran said can be a probable solution to try it out, if its able to achieve a 1% awareness , its a huge success to the company
Dear Mr Raj,
I’m interested by your observation about the ‘focused training session’. I agree in the sense that all the Information Security program should include such focused session for the Security Guards. I like to share my views on your queries;
Do you think, the training of security guards will solve these issues?
No, like Thomson said it won’t. But we could decrease the probability of occurrence of such breaches. Even some employees are unaware of such a problem, like you had already mentioned. But we could make them aware of such problems caused by entry of external removable media by implementation of security policies.
How many of us are having the patience to undergo these kinds of checks at the Reception?
Well, information security implementation will slows down things a little bit, but in the long run it will help the employees and the Company to go a lot faster. Making employees aware of their obligations under security policies and actually changing their behaviors to improve security is an issue. Also it’s the sole responsibility of the managerial team to become their role models and there by motivating employees to do the same.
Asok,
I agree to your view of training the security guards and we can expect it in the future and not immediately.