iPods pose security risk for enterprises

Spinner (Spinner) The iPod may be popular, but it apparently also poses such a major security risk for businesses, that enterprises should seriously consider banning the iPod and other portable storage devices, according to a study by research firm Gartner Inc.

July 6, 2004 12:13 PM ET in News,

The iPod may be popular, but it apparently also poses such a major security risk for businesses, that enterprises should seriously consider banning the iPod and other portable storage devices, according to a study by research firm Gartner Inc.

Gartner advised companies to forbid employees and external contractors with direct access to corporate networks from using these privately owned devices with corporate PCs. Companies should also consider a “desktop lockdown policy,” disabling universal plug and play functions after installing desired drivers, to permit the use of only authorized devices.

Source: InfoWorld

9 Comments:

  1. Justin
    6 Jul '04, 4:17 pm

    That happened here at my work. I was trying to take some of my music off of my PC at work and it looks like the USB had been messed with. The cd burner was found as an active device but it was automaticly disabled. I tried to find a way to get it to be enabled but to no avail. Is there anything I can do to get the music off of my work hard drive? Please tell me I can do something!!!

  2. DanG
    6 Jul '04, 4:21 pm
    Quoting Justin

    That happened here at my work. I was trying to take some of my music off of my PC at work and it looks like the USB had been messed with. The cd burner was found as an active device but it was automaticly disabled. I tried to find a way to get it to be enabled but to no avail. Is there anything I can do to get the music off of my work hard drive? Please tell me I can do something!!!

    They system admin has probably locked the systems down and unless you want to hack his admin user id and password, it's not likely to happen.

  3. Justin
    6 Jul '04, 4:23 pm

    And what would be the best way to hack that????

  4. TheBaron
    6 Jul '04, 4:30 pm
    Quoting Justin

    And what would be the best way to hack that????

    you would get fired, end of story

  5. tefleming
    6 Jul '04, 5:34 pm
    Quoting Justin

    That happened here at my work. I was trying to take some of my music off of my PC at work and it looks like the USB had been messed with. The cd burner was found as an active device but it was automaticly disabled. I tried to find a way to get it to be enabled but to no avail. Is there anything I can do to get the music off of my work hard drive? Please tell me I can do something!!!

    FTP?

  6. TheBaron
    6 Jul '04, 6:00 pm

    to stay on topic though, my work doesn't even allow camera phones or any kind of recording device. the freedom to bring / remove data is a luxury that i am not allowed :\

  7. Templar
    6 Jul '04, 6:59 pm

    We weren't allowed to bring these devices in either at a desk job I worked, and that was a year ago. Slow news. Of course, we had access to millions of medical records, so, yeah...

  8. Dexter
    6 Jul '04, 10:27 pm
    Quoting Justin

    Is there anything I can do to get the music off of my work hard drive? Please tell me I can do something!!!

    Higlight all the music files by dragging your cursor over them or pressing Ctrl-A in the folder. Then press the DELETE key. That will get them off your computer

    Ohhhh, you want to get them home with you...... Well, that's different.....

    Not likely. If extenal storage devices have been disabled from your systems, likely your company already has an internet "acceptable use" policy, and I am guessing that downloading music from a P2P app isn't part of company policy. If you are on good terms with the System Admin, ask him/her for permission to copy these, if you are not worried about getting in trouble for having them there in the first place. If you are starting to think "ya, meybe I could get in trouble for this", then delete them all, uninstall the P2P app, and do your downloading at home.

    Dexter...

  9. muddocktor
    6 Jul '04, 11:28 pm

    You could also try emailing them to your home address, if the email clients and servers in question allow attachments as large as your mp3's.

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