Triodos Bank Controls USB Risk with DeviceLock
Located in four countries, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, and Spain, 250 staff using a variety of USB devices.
Willem van de Meent, Triodos’ Systems Information Analyst, said in a prepared statement that in the risk assessment of early 2004, he considered many potential security breech scenarios, but when he considered both their severity and their likelihood of happening, securing USB ports at local end-points came out a top priority. According to M. van de Meent, “It is so easy for people to unintentionally compromise security via the USB port. We made this a top priority, though we want to control the use of other device-level risks as well.”
When Triodos Bank looked at ways to close the USB security hole, they settled on DeviceLock from Smartline Inc. “DeviceLock was the software solution that best met our needs,” said M. van de Meent. Regarding the implementation of DeviceLock across the 170 desktops and 80 laptops running Windows 2000 that M. van de Meet manages, he comments, “We had no significant problems implementing DeviceLock. True, people don’t like to have their freedom limited when it comes to connecting devices through the USB and other ports of their PCs; but, our employees accept that it is a security necessity.”
About Triodos Bank.
Triodos Bank (www.triodos.com) was opened in 1980 in the Netherlands by a few visionary thinkers who believed that a bank focused on socially responsible investing would contribute to a healthier, more sustainable economy. It attracted depositors and investors interested in financing only enterprises that add social, environmental and cultural value in fields such as renewable energy, social housing, complementary health care, fair trade, organic food and farming and social business. Today, Triodos Bank has grown to an institution of 250 employees, working in five locations in four countries, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, and Spain. Many of its investments are found in the developing economies of Latin America, Asia, Africa and Central and East Europe.
About SmartLine Inc.
Since its inception in 1996, SmartLine Inc provides information security and network management solutions to organizations that rely on Microsoft Windows technologies. SmartLine’s proven expertise with access control technologies helps customers improve security, productivity and system availability. IT professionals choose SmartLine solutions to administer, audit and protect these critical systems. The company’s customers include BAE SYSTEMS, AEROTEC Engineering GmbH, HSBC Bank, Barclays Bank, Chase Manhattan Bank, and various state and federal government agencies and departments. SmartLine is an international organization with offices in San Ramon, California and Milan, Italy.
About DeviceLock.
DeviceLock enables network administrators to centrally control uploading and downloading activity through local computer devices. With DeviceLock you can lock out unauthorized users from USB and FireWire devices, WiFi and Bluetooth adapters, CD-Rom and floppy drives, infrared, serial and parallel ports and many other plug-and-play devices.