IBM Bans Employees from Using Removable Storage Devices
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2025 9:54 am
IBM's chief information security officer said the company has decided to ban its employees worldwide from using removable storage devices (USB flash drives, memory cards, etc.). Instead, IBM employees are being asked to use a corporate data synchronization service to exchange files.
The ban on mobile devices is explained by the damage to the company's reputation from information leaks that can occur due to the loss, theft and misuse of such devices.
It should be noted that this is a rather controversial mexico whatsapp data on the part of IBM's security service. Of course, the problem of uncontrolled use of removable storage devices by employees exists and has existed for a long time. This problem has become especially relevant in connection with the emergence and widespread distribution of various mobile storage devices connected via USB ports. However, administrative prohibitions not supported by technical measures are not a serious guarantee of solving this problem. The optimal solution, in my opinion, is to use a special system for monitoring and logging access to ports, interfaces and external devices. This will allow for a fairly reliable protection of the enterprise's confidential information from leakage through this channel.
I do not know for sure what technical means are used in IBM to control the movement of data and whether they are used at all, but I can say that the task of preventing the recording of restricted access data to external storage media is easily solved by modern DLP tools. Moreover, it has been solved in full (with analysis of the content in real time at the time of recording) for at least ten years.
The ban on mobile devices is explained by the damage to the company's reputation from information leaks that can occur due to the loss, theft and misuse of such devices.
It should be noted that this is a rather controversial mexico whatsapp data on the part of IBM's security service. Of course, the problem of uncontrolled use of removable storage devices by employees exists and has existed for a long time. This problem has become especially relevant in connection with the emergence and widespread distribution of various mobile storage devices connected via USB ports. However, administrative prohibitions not supported by technical measures are not a serious guarantee of solving this problem. The optimal solution, in my opinion, is to use a special system for monitoring and logging access to ports, interfaces and external devices. This will allow for a fairly reliable protection of the enterprise's confidential information from leakage through this channel.
I do not know for sure what technical means are used in IBM to control the movement of data and whether they are used at all, but I can say that the task of preventing the recording of restricted access data to external storage media is easily solved by modern DLP tools. Moreover, it has been solved in full (with analysis of the content in real time at the time of recording) for at least ten years.