Timeline for How should I set up emergency access to business-critical secrets in case I am "hit by a bus"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 8, 2015 at 12:35 | comment | added | Blacklight Shining |
@RedSonja I would hope that sysadmins would have to either do something like sudo -iu $username or take the system down and mess with it in order to get logged in as someone else. The former would be logged; the latter presumably noticed by someone else.
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| Dec 4, 2015 at 21:56 | comment | added | derobert | Supposedly, many USB flash drives will lose their data in ~1yr of being unplugged (varies a fair bit depending on ambient temperature, exact flash used, etc.). Some more expensive ones claim ten years, make sure to at least be using one of those! (And a brand new one, writing wears them out, lessening the unplugged duration). Consider archival grade DVD-R. That should give you much longer. Or of course acid-free paper—will outlast your company if stored in a dark, dry place (like a safe). | |
| Dec 3, 2015 at 22:06 | comment | added | Steven Gubkin | Depending on the size of your company, the importance of the data, etc, it may be worthwhile to have duplicate USB sticks in several different physical locations (different states, or countries even). This way something like a flood, an earthquake, a bomb, will not result in loss of the critical data. | |
| Dec 3, 2015 at 21:47 | comment | added | Kat | @njzk2, I would consider this a non-issue for the most part because the whole point here is a redundancy. The likelihood of being hit by a bus at the same time as the secure facility catching on fire is extremely, extremely low. Not impossible, mind you, but perfect safe measures are impossible to achieve. We can only make things less likely to happen. | |
| Dec 3, 2015 at 9:34 | comment | added | RedSonja | @Blacklight that's what he said too, but as long as no-one broke the seal it's still ok. He is the boss, after all. Theoretically the system admins could do it too, but they never seem to. | |
| Dec 3, 2015 at 9:27 | comment | added | Max Williams | I think that a secure physical media which can only be physically accessed by whoever happens to be the CTO of the company is a good way to go here. | |
| Dec 3, 2015 at 8:08 | comment | added | Tachyons | @JimGarrison In short , handle usb get hit by bus situation | |
| Dec 3, 2015 at 7:45 | comment | added | Blacklight Shining | @RedSonja The problem with that someone (your boss, if no one else) could then log in as you and do nasty things… | |
| Dec 2, 2015 at 16:50 | comment | added | Charles Duffy | @njzk2, safe deposit box facilities are, as a rule, well-secured against fire. | |
| Dec 2, 2015 at 11:54 | comment | added | RedSonja | I am not very important, but my passwords are in a sealed envelope and the boss knows where it is. Obviously I can't do this with all passwords, but if you have the one you can get at the rest. | |
| Dec 1, 2015 at 12:32 | comment | added | Bergi | "very few people are going to road trip for your information" - depends on the kind of information, I'd say. | |
| Nov 30, 2015 at 22:45 | comment | added | njzk2 | what if the place where the drive is burns? or the drive fails? make copies and put them in more than one place | |
| Nov 30, 2015 at 22:18 | comment | added | Jim Garrison | Make several copies. USB drives can go bad. Also, everything should be on paper with the USB drive. | |
| Nov 30, 2015 at 21:10 | comment | added | Chris Thompson | heh "plug and panic" | |
| Nov 30, 2015 at 18:48 | comment | added | Marsh | What about this? Use a public/private key pair to encrypt frequently-changing secrets, and the USB contains the information needed to decrypt them. The encrypted secrets could be stored anywhere that's easily-accessible, and updated as needed, without needing to physically access the USB. | |
| Nov 30, 2015 at 18:45 | comment | added | Ohnana | Yes, that is a drawback. It does require upkeep. However, disaster contingency is not a "one-and-done" process. A frequently changing secret forces you to keep your secret database up to date, and see any problems before you are out the door. | |
| Nov 30, 2015 at 18:42 | comment | added | Marsh | How can this deal with frequently-changing secrets such as passwords? Every time you change a secret, you need to physically access the USB and update it. It only takes one frequently-changing secret to cause this problem. | |
| Nov 30, 2015 at 17:16 | history | answered | Ohnana | CC BY-SA 3.0 |