Security Basics mailing list archives

Re: Thin-clients: THE Solution to the Security problem


From: "Topi Ylinen" <topi.ylinen () hushmail com>
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 05:25:11 -0700

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THE solution?  No, it's not always applicable.
Is it A solution?  Certainly

That is the gist of the issue.
How to permanently eliminate attack vectors that target your
workstations -> get rid of workstations. I guess you could call
that a solution. 'A solution' to 'a problem'.

Most real-life security issues fall outside the scope of this
'solution'. Thin clients will give little or no increased security
against social engineering, dishonest employees, a fire in the
server room, DDoS, and so on. In some ways, thin clients could be
even more vulnerable: for example, an unavailable server could
prevent *all* work, while your normal desktop PC could allow you to
continue working locally even when the LAN or a server is down. Not
to mention that in some organisations, thin clients could be
technically infeasible.

There is no single security solution that automatically fits all
organisations. You need to do a proper organisation-specific risk
analysis first -- only after that you can appraise the various
countermeasures and their impacts, and choose the ones that make
sense in your organisation.

(However, I do suspect that the original poster was deliberately
exaggerating the usefulness of the 'solution' in order to provoke
discussion.)
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