Thanks, Bill.
 
We all have had to live with management-driven decisions at one time or the
other, no? We change what we can, and accept what we can't and try to make
the best of it. This is one of those situations.
 
The line of thought is "we don't care what's running around in the Labs as
long as they remain in the Labs, but, by the way, we need to be able to pull
files from our Labs machines to our production desktops so we can work on
them. So, you see, you can't block off the Labs"
 
Anyway, the cost is really not a factor. Finding what to invest the money in
is the issue. The PRIMARY (and, maybe, ONLY) concern is keeping viruses that
propagate through network shares from coming to the production network. The
device I was testing does SMTP, POP and Web filtering, but 90% of the Virus
problems is NetBIOS borne. And, no, I can't filter out NetBIOS ports between
the Labs and the production sides. That is my dilemma. IF there is a device
on the market that does NetBIOS virus scanning and prevention, a big part of
my problem will disappear overnight. And, if wishes were horses ........ :-p
 
>From the look of things, though, it seems that this is on of the situations
where we say "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral
problems." Apologies to Ed Crowley :)
 
Sincerely,

Dèjì Akómöláfé, MCSE MCSA MCP+I
www.akomolafe.com
www.iyaburo.com
Do you now realize that Today is the Tomorrow you were worried about
Yesterday?  -anon

________________________________

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Bill Moran
Sent: Fri 10/17/2003 10:08 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [ActiveDir] VERY OT: Preventing Viruses from Lab to Live network



[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I forgot to mention that. Yeah, there is a requirement for connectivity
> between the 2 sides. That's why firewalling them is not an option.

I've been following this because I think it's outrageous.  I don't envy
your problem.

I think you're in a situation where you'll have to say "if that's what
you want, then it's going to cost you" to whoever put the connectivity
requirement in place.

First off, you are going to want a firewall between production and lab.
Set it to deny by default, then allow ONLY the EXACT traffic that you
want to allow.  Then configure logging and make it a point to review
the logs regularly.

I would also suggest a dedicated SMTP relay for the lab, with virus
scanning and extensive access restrictions: again, allow only what
you KNOW is safe, log everything, and review the logs regularly.
Configure your firewall so that ONLY mail that's gone through the
SMTP relay is allowed anywhere.  This will stop a lot of SMTP-based
worms from getting anywhere, as well as alerting you to their
existance.

Even this will not protect you from every type of attack, but it
should reduce the rate of occurance significantly.
--
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com

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