The protection of personnel, hardware, programs, networks, and data from physical circumstances and events.
10
votes
3answers
2k views
How can I prevent someone from accessing a Windows XP system via boot disk?
Apparently a computer system protected by a a login password, e.g. Windows XP, can be easily hacked by someone with physical access to it using methods like this one:
...
3
votes
2answers
947 views
Safely disable firewire/thunderbolt, patching up DMA exposure
I understand that Firewire 400/800 and Thunderbolt have DMA enabled, and a malicious hardware device can easily read and manipulate system memory at will. If I disable the software drivers for these ...
18
votes
6answers
795 views
How to secure a WiFi network?
What do I have to do to secure a WiFi network? Is there any best practices?
I have been recommended to use WPA2 encryption on the router, is that enough? What can I do to improve the security even ...
16
votes
7answers
788 views
Securing the security guy's home office: what should we do?
I read an article in the latest InfoSecurity magazine (an infosec trade rag by Elsevier) saying that us security professionals aren't necessarily taking the correct steps to protect our own home ...
13
votes
2answers
849 views
Methods for protecting computer systems from physical attacks
I am interested in cost effective and creative ideas for detecting physical attacks against computer systems. This includes, but is not limited to Tamper Evident security measures.
Consider the ...
5
votes
3answers
184 views
Sourcing hardware that is least likely to contain backdoors
I understand that CPU silicon (for example) is scrutinized for backdoors but there are other aspects of a computer system that may "leak data" to the outside world unbeknownst to the owner regardless ...
76
votes
13answers
6k views
Why do we lock our computers?
It's common knowledge that if somebody has physical access to your machine they can do whatever they want with it1.
So why do we always lock our computers? If somebody has physical access to my ...
16
votes
7answers
1k views
Protecting critical state infrastructure from the aftermath of a nuclear blast
Countries rely on computer infrastructure for a huge percentage of communications and military management, as well as utilities like electricity. Unfortunately, nuclear attacks release massive ...
14
votes
2answers
1k views
How can vending machines be hacked? And how can I prevent it?
I am developing a vending machine and want to make it secure.
In a comment to my previous question, @Polynomial said "Vending machines (and similar devices) can often be pwned via buffer overflows on ...
12
votes
4answers
799 views
How do you prevent physical backups from being stolen?
I'm sure, by now, we're all aware of the need to encrypt backup disks, but what can be done on the physical security side of things to prevent backups from being stolen or damaged?
Particularly:
...
8
votes
1answer
336 views
How to apply IT Security knowledge to Home Security?
Today my car got stolen from my house, and it is possible the person who did it has access to my home. I try to take secure measures online to maintain security, yet it seems I never paid attention to ...
6
votes
7answers
2k views
Physical computer security, how to disable USB ports when the computer is 'locked'?
Lets say my PC & server is in an environment where a theoretical attacker has physical access to the machine while I'm not there. Now the data is encrypted on the hard drive with TrueCrypt. ...
8
votes
4answers
337 views
Best practices for physically securing a notebook
If the user knows that other people will repeatedly have physical access to her notebook - running Linux - while she is absent, and that there is no way around this, what are best practices for ...
3
votes
4answers
243 views
Help to account all the points of physical access to a rack server to steal software
Let's say I want to move my 1U Dell server to co-location site with a hostile company who will try to steal my code (this is almost 90% probability if I dont take steps)...
The limitation for their ...
2
votes
4answers
213 views
Detecting and filtering data over AC power lines?
Given that it's possible for the average consumer to send covert signals over normal AC lines how can an IT department identify and filter out this communication?
I'm not sure how difficult this is ...
