Daniel,
I think you will find that this is a common problem in the industry. There are going to be times where non-company owned assets are going to need to plug into your network with business justifications such as a vendor visiting onsite or in your case where the vendor agrees to manage their asset on your network. I understand as a network administrator you see the risk of having a machine on your LAN that you\your team did not personally secure (un-trusted) however it is imperative that you balance the security of your network with the business needs of your organization. In this situation it is important to develop a policy that acknowledges this as a known risk and establish guidelines to reduce the risk such as requiring all non-company owned assets that utilize your LAN to have antivirus installed with the latest updates, secured with the latest patches, etc. The vendor will need to be informed of the policy and understand that he needs to comply with this policy to ensure the security and stability of your corporate IT infrastructure. Angelo Castigliola III Information Security - Application Security Architecture Unum * [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Sichel Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 12:51 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Full-disclosure] Need some help with management My management here wants to put a server on our LAN, not administered by us (the IT department) and use a share on it to serve files and data to our workstations. They do not understand why having a server with a file share that is NOT part of our secure infrastructure represents a threat to the computers accessing it. Keep in mind this is an all Windows network. Sooo, if you guys can succinctly explain why having a trusted computer trust an untrusted computer is a problem, that would be helpful. Keep in mind we are talking to management here. It's kind of like trying to explain why, when you are in the United States, it's a bad idea to drive on the left hand side of the road. It's just so basic it's not documented anywhere. So, please help me explain why netbios and file shares on machines not within your network are bad ideas. Thanks, Daniel Sichel, CCNP, MCSE,MCSA,MCTS (Windows 2008) Network Engineer Ponderosa Telephone (559) 868-6367
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