In my organization, we're talking about this issue. The driving factor
right now is privacy laws. 

As noted in the article, there are limits to the physical aspects of
turning off USB ports, and, as long as companies allow remote access to
their systems by employee home computers, a 1GB thumb drive is the tip
of the iceberg.

I again reviewed a subpoena that came in last fall, that I thought was
the most thorough list of electronic data that I had seen. There are
some exhaustive lists, but much of the technology mentioned
specifically is obsolete ("Bernoulli cartridges" "EPROM"). The list of
examples contains these obsolete media types and neglects to mention
DVDs, USB drives and things like PDAs and Blackberries by name.
However, the broad construct of what they wanted included could
certainly include such items.

In this subpoena, the issuer specifically wanted us to look for
"deleted files" and "fragmentary files" that are responsive. I hadn't
seen "fragmentary files" before.

My opinion is that some company is going to find itself in a major
legal wringer in the next couple of years because it allowed home
access to company data and some "Charlie" out there pulled all sorts of
data and burned a zillion CDs of "valuable data" that he stored at
home. The "Charlie's Garage" of the film "Buried Alive" will look like
a broom closet. This sort of data cache will cost a company millions
and probably require companies to drastically rethink their home access
policies and data security policies in general. My guess is that the
proliferation of broadband access will make this sort of action a
certainty in the next couple of years.

So while thumb drives are something to be aware of, unfettered
broadband access at home is the far more worrisome issue.

Patrick Cunningham, CRM

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