Re: Linked-in and its Phishing-like contacts option!

On Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:26:01 +0000
"Gautier . Rich" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Thoughts? I'm wondering why User Operational Security falls under the
> realm of Firewall Wizards..

I think of it this way: Firewall security, in and of itself, doesn't
get the job done.  You may have the most bullet-proof border the world
has ever seen, but, unless that bullet-proof-ness means essentially
blocking everything, both incoming and outgoing, it will not be
enough.  A layered defense is mandatory.  One of those layers is
end-user operational security.

Our goal is to protect the organizational jewels, no?

Besides: We've pretty-much beaten stateful/deep-packet inspection vs.
application proxy to death, no? :)

> ... plenty of users seem to
> be perfectly willing to accept the risk (or be unaware of it).

Both, IME.

> However, not much you can do on the firewall side other than turning
> off webmail access...

Turning off webmail access?  How would one accomplish  that, exactly,
without essentially turning off web access entirely?

As for LinkedIn: I've received so many LinkedIn emails reported as spam
at work that they've occasionally been there.  I may have them listed
on my mailserver at home, for the same reason. (Possibly so. Can't say
as I've seen LinkedIn spam for a while.)

This nonsense of them asking for "work email password" is grounds, in
_my_ view, to block them entirely.  That's intolerable.  I'm going to
see if I can do that.

But I'm old school.  I don't believe convenience, golly-gee-whiz-bang,
and _especially_ "social networking" ought to trump security.  Generally
my bosses tend to agree. (Esp. ever since a couple of the Big Guys
attended some-or-another network security briefing, which incl. a
retired FBI agent, and were told that "whatever your network security
is, it's probably not good enough" and "for God's sake, whatever you
do, do not lose your network geek" ;).)

Regards,
Jim
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