this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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One chestnut from my history in lottery game development:

While our security staff was incredibly tight and did a generally good job, oftentimes levels of paranoia were off the charts.

Once they went around hot gluing shut all of the "unnecessary" USB ports in our PCs under the premise of mitigating data theft via thumb drive, while ignoring that we were all Internet-connected and VPNs are a thing, also that every machine had a RW optical drive.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (3 children)

We have a largeish number of systems that IT declared catheorically could not connect directly to the Internet for any reason.

So guess what systems weren't getting updates. Also guess what systems got overwhelmed by ransomware that hit what would have been a patched vulnerability, that came through someone's laptop that was allowed to connect to the Internet.

My department was fine, because we broke the rules to get updates.

So did network team admit the flaw in their strategy? No, they declared a USB key must have been the culprit and they literally went into every room and confiscated all USB keys and threw them away, with quarterly audits to make sure no USB keys appear. The systems are still not being updated and laptops with Internet connection are still indirectly bridging them.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wait, why don't they use patch management software? If they allow computers with Internet access to connect to them, why not a patch management server?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They do. In fact they mandate IT assets to have three competing patch management software on them. They mandate disabling any auto updates because they have to vet them first. My official laptop hasn't been pushed an update in 8 months.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do y'all need a consultant? That is so bad it's a non starter.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ironically, we actually have a Segment of our business that provides IT for other companies, and they do a decent job, but they aren't allowed to manage our own IT. Best guess is that they are too expensive to waste on our own IT needs. If an IT staffember accidentally shows competence, they are probably moved to the billable group.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Also, I keep a "rogue" laptop to self administrate along with my official it laptop to show I am in compliance. Updates are disabled and are only allowed to be fine y by IT. I just checked and they haven't pushed any updates for about 8 months.