No thumbdrive?!? How do I get any work done?

[Gatordev]

The rule was put in place because they figured out that is how it was spread, simple as that. As for the confusion on what the rule actually is, I think it is an excellent example of how DoD's IT infrastructure and practices are too Balkanized and dysfunctional. Then again, that may be a good thing. Clear as mud?

I got a couple of PMs after my last post. Folks, you misunderstand my post. It wasn't meant as a means to ask what's going on, it was meant as an observation on how much the policy has become rumor more than fact and how little people understand the overall system. One example was someone mentioning how "soon all the ports will be turned off." As was noted here, that's impractical since all the keyboards and mice are USB now.

That's all. Please don't report me to the local NCIS office, or worse, the local Mod squad, for soliciting information that doesn't need to be discussed in detail here.

 

[a2b2c3]

Unrelated topic: noticed yesterday for the first time that NMCI/SkyNet is now blocking Airwarriors. WTF, over?

Do they know what they actually block? I love it when I pull up the US AHAS website and its blocked by NMCI randomly. Or for that matter when NOAA's aviation weather is randomly blocked...

 

[Clux4]

This whole thumbdrive thing is getting ridiculous. No one seems to know the actual story on it. I was sitting in a joint briefing today (all five services plus some other alphabet soups) and at the end, this topic came up. No one had the same story as to why it the rule was put in place or what the actual rule was (thumbdrive vs USB HD vs USB at all vs etc). Kind of comical to hear when it was SO VITALLY IMPORTANT that everyone follow the directive.

Have we started causing our own friction?!

 

[Pugs]

Do they know what they actually block? I love it when I pull up the US AHAS website and its blocked by NMCI randomly. Or for that matter when NOAA's aviation weather is randomly blocked...

It's the nature of using firewalls incorrectly. We have one here that has over 4000 rule sets. Why they think they can manage that I don't know.

 

[Gatordev]

Have we started causing our own friction?!

No, I think it's a matter of causing our own fiction.

 

[HuggyU2]

They started scanning the network today.

Same at my base. A number of folks got caught violating the directive, including FGO's. I'm curious what the punishments will end up being.

 

[phrogdriver]

So why are thumbdrives, personal or government, so bad? Is it the fact that they're so easy to go from computer to computer or is it something about flash-based memory? USB hard drives, at least government ones, are still legal. SanDisks are illegal now, too, but very few people use them, so it's not as if people are running from computer to computer with SDs.

 

[Alpha_Echo_606]

I was told by a maintainer that an officer in his squadron went to town while on det over seas and bought a thumb drive. He used it on the A/C and it uploaded a virus to the network. Before they could get all the hard drives fixed someone pulled one of the hard drives out for another A/C and the virus now infected two A/C. I know that the A/C uses no antivirus hardware so it is easy to upload a virus on said unprotected network.

This incident might be what started the whole thing, I don't know since I got the info second hand.

 

[robav8r]

For those with access,

The following link (left side of the page) has the current guidance and instructions.



http://www.fleetforces.navy.smil.mil/hq/Pages/Default.aspx

 

[Brett327]

For those with access,

The following link (left side of the page) has the current guidance and instructions.



http://www.fleetforces.navy.smil.mil/hq/Pages/Default.aspx

That's cool and all, but I'd rather reference an instruction or some kind of NAVADMIN vice some dude at FLTFORCOM named Sam.

Brett

 

[jamnww]

So why are thumbdrives, personal or government, so bad? Is it the fact that they're so easy to go from computer to computer or is it something about flash-based memory? USB hard drives, at least government ones, are still legal. SanDisks are illegal now, too, but very few people use them, so it's not as if people are running from computer to computer with SDs.

Most thumbdrives, and some USB external hard drives utilitze builtin autoplay features. The problem with this it that it immediately opens the drive when it is inserted into a computer. This allows any infections that are on the drive to be transmitted to the computer and likewise to the network.

The result of this is that as people surf the internet on their home computers and are infected with viruses they then transfer these viruses to government networks through thumbdrives. With the number of small networks or off network computers the problem of keeping DOD networks free from infection are complicated exponentially with teh use of thumbdrives. The only way to guarentee network security is to sanitize every computer at the same time and limit future infection possibilities.

Case in point, on my recent deployment our squadron encountered serious virus attacks which resulted in having to reformat and reimage all of the flight planning computers. This resulted in both loss of data and a time commitment of several hours of work for each computer. A short time later the command required virus scans for ALL thumbdrives and found some drives infected with literally hundreds of viruses.

Not saying its right or that there isn't a better way, just an observation...

 

[webmaster]

That's all. Please don't report me to the local NCIS office, or worse, the local Mod squad, for soliciting information that doesn't need to be discussed in detail here.

No, we have our eye on you...

 

[hscs]

Above mentioned 'autoplay' features also allow data to be transmitted to parts unknown.....another problem

 

[snake020]

Looks like we have a winner as to why the ban came about:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12/10/cyber-attack-linked-company-russian-spies/