Homeland Security’s drop test supports BlockMaster’s in-house study

Not long ago, back in December of 2010, we here at BlockMaster did some research that proved organizations to be at great risk of being affected by unsolicited viruses and malware.

Specifically, the study concluded that 76 percent of workers plug unknown USB flash drives into company computers, resulting in the increased likelihood of greatly compromised corporate network security.

That conclusion seemed to strike a note of concern, given that many viruses stored within USB flash drives can start to run as soon as they are plugged into a computer within a corporate network. The Stuxnet worm (the first known ‘industrial’ virus), for instance, was noted for its capacity to spread via non-secured USB flash drives…

Plug-In Without Caution

The study spoke to the fact that people who find flash drives tend to plug them in without hesitation or caution. Hence the need for managed secure USB flash drive solutions, such as those offered by BlockMaster, to provide a more comprehensive security blanket in response to the loss of sensitive and confidential corporate information stored on flash drives…
Suffice it to say, our study has been one-upped.

But it’s a funny thing when someone steals your thunder. It is not always a bad thing – depending on who it is. Case in point, our own, aforementioned research was recently upstaged by the United States Federal Government.

We’ll take it…

Hacking Is Easy

According to a report by Bloomberg, the United States Department of Homeland recently ran an experiment that supports our own research and seems to, once again, support the fact that – even with the presence of security software and strong firewalls – there’s no easy way to make up for a human being’s capacity for poor decision-making.

According to Bloomberg, Homeland Security ran a test on government workers to get a better gauge on how easy it is for hackers to – even without a thought toward gaining direct network access – find ways to infiltrate and get access to computer systems.

The department dropped computer disks and flash drives in the parking areas of various government buildings and private contractors, and the results were that 60 percent of the people who picked up the devices plugged them into office computers. Further, drives adorned with an official logo were installed by 90 percent of those who picked them up off the ground.

Protect Yourself From Human Curiosity

“Like a monkey, grasping at the moon’s reflection on water…” So goes the old Japanese saying, in reference to the inexorable human fallacies. People are, like cats and monkeys, sometimes overwhelmed by their own curiosity. And 83 percent of those people – out of those who happen to work in offices – make steady use of USB flash drives…

One easy way to protect yourself and your enterprise from human error is to make sure your people understand your corporate policy regarding USB flash drive usage. Make sure they understand the dangers and, as always, make sure your policy includes the strict usage of only secure and trusted USB flash drives such as these SafeConsoleReady Devices >>.