> SNIPS - From: "Creamer, William" <[log in to unmask]>
> 
> I liked you much better Hugh when you just told us about great products for fire protection and other things within your area of expertise.  The conspiracy theories and right wing politics loosely passed off as relating to records management, not so much.

As always I would be happy to talk about the latest techniques in vaulting computer media, server vaulting, protecting rare and priceless archives. There are few on this List or anywhere who can speak to the type of collections I spend time with on a daily basis. These clients demand a level of integrity that requires extreme measures. Archivists understand that once they lose their collection, their career is over.  

My entire career is spent around high-security companies. These organizations control the access of employees, visitors and vendors to their secure networks. Seldom do they offer unsecured access on their campuses.  I visited two such companies this week, last week I was on a nuclear site where I had to lock everything in the trunk of my car and park that car in a remote parking lot and walk in. This was followed by an offsite data storage site in Nashville that takes their data protection security very seriously and I had to sign statements that defined the security procedures I must follow. 

One takes notice when you must sign a statement that you guarantee that flash drives, recording devices, cameras, cell phone and so on are not in your possession before they wand you into the site. (Larry gets it, as he lives in this world.) We build vaults that prevent cell phone transmissions out of the shielded box. Access Control is the key feature in security.

Read the manuals on how hackers figure out your passwords.  They research your personal information and once they know your wife’s maiden name, your kids names, your hobbies, your dog’s names and so on, finding your passwords is relatively easy. Articles have been written about how FaceBook being a major source for hackers. 

If you have looked on my web site you will notice there are listings of offsite storage companies that use the FIRELOCK Vault to protect their clients' vital information assets. Recently, several have notified me that they were called upon to restore clients IT Platforms due to the “Ransomware Virus” infecting clients. In some cases, it is the misguided BYOD program that opened the door to the virus.

Remember the old statistic that 47% of companies that lose their data go out of business within the year...........  Imagine everything on your company computers being turned into random ciphers by a rogue encryption code. That is the same as burning down the records center.

Mythology tells us of Pandora’s Box; but to me the uncontrolled access to the internet and BYOD on Social Networks is the real Pandora’s Box.   Larry's description about how the youth of today view internet security was spot on. Fifty employees with BYOD means 50 different attitudes on security.  That is unsustainable.

> While it is annoying to get invitations from complete strangers on systems that keep pestering you until you log into the application and tell the system you want to ignore the invitation, it's pretty much like marketing phone calls and spam - a fact of life in the 21st century.

Yet we all have SPAM filters, we check to see caller ID. All things we are forced to do to remain secure.  Now we must step up and deny BYOD, Twitter, Facebook and so on;  if we are working for a company that requires security protocols.
> 
> No one is taking away electronic devices in corporate America.  

Apparently, we live in different worlds. 
> 
> Companies I've worked for realized that you can not control peoples behavior outside of work very easily or very well.  

Who cares what people do on their own time; as long as they keep confidential information about the corporation secure. As long as they cannot access the company data base from outside the secure corporate database. As long as they can’t use a smart phone to photograph corporate information and email it from their phone to a competitor or a hacker paying them to provide bank account information, wire transfer instructions and so on. 

I don’t even have to wait for an upcoming RAIN to validate what I am saying here; as we all read about it every day.  

> Seriously? You would terminate an employee that used social networking?  I'd imagine if that were true, that you'd be missing out on some great talent. 

Confidentiality is the key in many businesses. Like virginity and integrity, once it is gone, it can never be replaced. FaceBook, Twitter and BYOD are creating tremendous harm to organizations. 

No amount of talent in one individual can make up for the damage one thoughtless exposure of proprietary information could cause a company. You cannot unring the bell.

Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
[log in to unmask]
(610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
WWW.FIRELOCK.COM
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