Progress in new technology, driven by the fall in Nand Flash price, has led to several little devices that will hold a substantial quantity of data. The device that epitomises all of these is the USB Flash Drive. In 1999 a 16MB USB Flash Drive cost?ê50 now a 4GB USB Flash Drive costs only?ê10.USB Flash Drives have been a great friend to businesses over the last few years, making it quick and easy to transfer data from one machine to an additional and to carry work residence to finish without needing to haul around a heavy laptop. Even so, with flash drives being able to hold ever growing amounts of data and transfer data quicker than ever, USB flash drives are being looked at by some companies as one of their biggest threats to security.The use of USB Flash Drives in company poses 3 categories of risk: the contraction of a computer virus; the loss of data along with the theft of data. All 3 of these are considerably serious: a computer virus could completely wipe out a company's IT infrastructure and delete their most crucial files, if the firm hasn't an effective data backup this could ruin it; if a business holds sensitive details and loses it, the business could be found to have broken the DPA and could get fined a crippling sum of cash, not to mention the damage to its reputation; if a sales individual walks out with your whole clients database and gives it to his new firm you are going to lose at least a few clients.Fortunately you will find some solutions out there to decrease the chances of businesses being a victim of 1 of the sad situations mentioned above. 1. Removal of USB ports - The removal of USB ports is really a rather severe reaction to this possible threat and is usually a practically challenging 1 to implement, lots of firms use USB ports for their mice and keyboards and these would all need to be changed.2. Encryption of USB Drives - Encryption on USB Flash Drive can take one of two forms either a hardware encryption or software encryption. Forms of challenging ware inscription may contain only permitting access to the USB Flash Drive after the user has authenticated his or her authority making use of a password, encryption certificate or biometric authentication (most commonly finger print recognition but sometimes also retina recognition). The encryption of storage media may also be managed via software two examples are Microsoft's Active Directory and Novell's eDirectory, both might be set up to use certificates to data held on USB Flash Drives.3. Restrict access to critical files on critical servers - As with all organization information access needs to be given on a need to basis and taken away from employees as soon as they no longer want that access: if you're going to give an individual their notice is it worth letting them have access although they sit it out?4. Monitor access of organization employees to sensitive files - Just simply because your employees have access to the data does not mean they have ant rights to do with as they please. Monitoring their behaviour with sensitive data is the very best method to spot any unusual pattern and can give you time to act and stop any possible data leaks.5. Limit size of data transferred to USB drives- Data transfer restriction software may be utilized to protect sensitive files by capping the sizes of files that will be copied to a USB Flash Drive. The file size limit simply requirements to be set to the size of the smallest sensitive files. 6. Enforce USB Flash Drive policies - Enforcing USB Flash Drive Policies can go a lengthy way to reducing the risk of accidental loss of data, policies alone aren't likely to stop a disgruntled employee from performing any damage. Here are some policies you may need to think about: USB Flash Drives need to only be utilized for data transfer and not storage. Data really should not be on USB Flash Drives for over a week. Data should not be transferred to USB flash drives without prior consent form a manager.7. Firewalls and Anti viruses - Viruses might be contracted from USB Flash Drives just as they could be contracted from any other form of media. To keep yourself safe be sure you have the newest updates installed for whichever antivirus software you use.Although the removal of USB ports is the only 100% specific way of making certain USB flash drives pose you no risk it's not a solution, the benefits of USB flash drives are vast and getting rid of them would be a step back for computing. By being vigilant to the behaviour of enterprise staff and using 1 or a variety of the security solutions mentioned above you'll be able to protect your self from flash drive misuse but still benefit from their versatility.
