Oh, the things a
bad guy can do if he can lay his hands on your computer! Here‘s sampling, going
from stone age to space age:
He could mount
the ultimate low-tech denial of service attack, and smash your building, and
hold it for ransom.
He could boot
the computer from a floppy disk, and reformat your hard drive. But wait, you
say, l’ve configured the BIOS on my computer to prompt for a password when I
turn the power on. No problem-if he can open the case and get his hands on the
system hardware; he could just replace the BIOS chips. (Actually, there are
even easier ways).
He could remove the hard drive from your
computer, install it into his computer, and read it.
He could make a
duplicate of your hard drive and take it back his lair. Once there, he’d have
all the time in the world to conduct brute-force attacks, such as trying every
possible logon password. Programs are available to automate this and, given
enough time, it’s almost certain that he would succeed. Once that happens, Laws
#1 and #2 above apply.
He could replace
your keyboard with one that contains a radio transmitter. He could then monitor
everything you type, including your password.
Always make sure
that a computer is physically protected in a way that’s consistent with its
value-and remember that the value of a computer includes not only the value of
the hardware itself, but the value of the data on it, and the value of the
access to your network that a bad guy could gain. At a minimum,
business-critical computer like domain controllers, database servers, and print/file
servers should always but you may want to consider protecting other computers
as well, and potentially using additional protective measures.
If you travel
with a laptop, it’s absolutely critical that you protect it. The same features
that make laptop great to travel with-small size, light weight, and so
forth-also make them easy to steal. There are a variety of locks and alarms
available for laptops, and some models let you remove the hard drive and carry
it with you. You also can use features like the Encrypting File System in
Microsoft Windows 2000 to mitigate the damage if someone succeeded in stealing
the computer. But the only way you can know with 100% certainty that your data
is safe and the hardware hasn’t been tampered with is to keep the laptop on
your person at all times while traveling.
No comments:
Post a Comment