Not pointing fingers...

[tanithryudo]

News passed around work lately. City of SF got locked out of their network by a rogue employee. Since apparently Cisco devices are involved, I've heard some calls and rumors flying around recently about it. I wonder if it's not just the computers/servers that got locked out, but even the routers, etc.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/17/BAK111QRPB.DTL
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4350711.ece
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/148563/it_administrator_pleads_not_guilty_to_network_tampering.html
http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/vulnerabilities/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209100472

See, this is one of the problems with electronic security. Even if you make the hardware/software hard to crack, it's a double-edged sword when the security breaks down at the social side of the network that you can't design around.

Comments

[cashew.insanejournal.com]

Er...isn't that a problem with security in general? Even before the electronic passwords, there were your lock and key and titanium steel safes, and those ran into the same problems, yes?

Of course, one could eliminate the social factor with robots, but Wall-E suggests that it may not be a great idea either.