Re: 'Porn-surfing hits taxpayer IDs'

[Gary Flynn <flynngn () JMU EDU>]

Another option would be to provide bootable CDs to the
untrusted third parties and have them use those to
boot their untrusted machines and access your constituents'
sensitive data.

I know it sounds a bit crazy but with some planning,
I think it would be practical.

If they need to save data, it could be saved to an encrypted,
authenticated USB key. ( Its got to be better than saving
it to the local machine running untrusted software. ) One
needs to be cognizant, though, of people saving sensitive
data from servers locally though so this capability should
be provided only if absolutely necessary.

The browser could have its user-agent fiddled with to provide
the server some capability of verifying the CD environment.
Or PKI could be used. Shoot, the CDs could be serialized with
different PKI material providing a simple form of two factor.
None of these will keep a determined person from bypassing it
but by golly, if they go that far to subvert security and
policy, maybe termination should start being looked at more
strongly as an option...before a data breach rather than
afterwards.

Only the future can tell how much disclosure constituents
will put up with before being amenable to more stringent,
less convenient policies and controls.

I got my letter from the VA a couple days ago. Virginia
counties are putting land records with SSN and other
sensitive data online to make accessing county records
more convenient. For whom, I don't know. Personally, I
could do with a little less convenience.


--
Gary Flynn
Security Engineer
James Madison University
www.jmu.edu/computing/security

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