Mullen: Thumb drive ban won’t end soon

[unhappycamper]

Mullen: Thumb drive ban won’t end soon
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Stars and Stripes online edition, Friday, February 20, 2009

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. – Don’t expect a letup in the global war on thumb drives.

In November that the Defense Department banned the use of removable storage devices and flash media on government computers. Wired Magazine reported the move came after the worm virus Agent.btz was discovered on some department networks, and was believed to be spread through the portable drives.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday he does not have a timetable to reverse the ban, which includes thumb drives, memory sticks and camera flash cards.

“I do not see the thumb drives going back here in the immediate future,” Mullen said.

During a town hall meeting with soldiers, Mullen said the restrictions were put into place to protect Defense Department systems from a growing threat in the cyber realm.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60869%2e

[notesdev]

1. Thumb drives

are an excellent way to get around access controls... Lord knows I do it pretty much every day at work.

Also a good way to move a big chunk of data between machines in the same location without making your poor network bear the load.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. They are using CDs instead, which is only a temporary measure

[notesdev]

3. Which kind of defeats the point...

as you can transfer a virus using any medium.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. Depends on design...Flash drives are particulalry good for xfers

and there are viri designed expressly to do that. CDs are harder.

Check the following links for some more detail:
http://wiki.hak5.org/wiki/USB_Switchblade
http://www.usbhacks.com/2006/10/07/usb-switchblade/