[ILUG] Security: Was Naive ADSL/WiFi questions (long (sorry!))?

[Michael Watterson]

Josh Glover wrote:
> On 23/06/07, Michael Watterson <watty at eircom.net> wrote:
>
>> My conclusions about security :
>
> I agree in general. A few small comments inline:
>
>> 2) Users have to be allowed access to their own PCs, unfortunately, so
>> they need training. Works better than AV software.
>
> Good point. Maybe combine this with automatic quarantining of email
> attachments at the MTA and a Squid proxy that knows about the
> stopmalware.org list.
>
>> 3) External Access. Don't allow unknown providence  SW to be  run.
>> Floppy,  CD, or Internet. Why almost every PC supplied had Floppy left
>> as default boot device?  Disable all network bindings and services not
>> needed.
>
> PCs come with a default boot device so you can over-right the Windows
> install right of the bat! ;)
>
> /me ducks
>
> But yes, disable this shite straight off.
>
>> 4) Don't run AV software as (a) Gives users a false sense of security so
>> they won't bother with lessons in (2) and (b) It doesn't really work
>
> I like this point.
>
>> 5) Be 110% expert in configuring any service / device connected to 
>> Internet.
>
> This is the hard part. And actually, it might be impossible. Hence
> Bruce Schneier's point about security service providers.
>
It's more effort that I want any more, unless my day job is  security 
(which I'm glad it hasn't been for over 2 years), hence I use  mostly 
hosted  services. Also the  bandwidth  that the datacentre can  include  
in the hosting  would  cost  home or  office  (in Ireland) 10 times  
what  the hosting  costs !

-- 
Mike