How do you protect your laptops ???

[NADIAZIPPER]

I wanted your thoughts or ideas on how to protect our system from our laptops that are in the field and at users homes that do not get Windows or Symantec updates, yet when brought in to the office could infect our network. How do we get updates??? We though mailing CD's with updates, but it is time consuming and we would have to trust that users will do them immediately and not let them sit around. Your suggestions and ideas will be most appreciated.

 

[KimLeece]

How about setting up the laptops to update automatically? That way whenever a user accesses the internet Windows automatically checks for and installs any available updates.

Kim.

 

[NADIAZIPPER]

Some updates don't work with our sysytem...we have to be careful

 

[2ffat]

Do you ave a web site? If so, post the tested patches and updates to a private area on your site.

You could also put them on a server that they can access remotely, i.e. via a dial-up line or web connection.

As a last resort, you could e-mail them but that may be time-consuming if they only have a dial-up connection.

James P. Cottingham

When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.
[tab][tab]Albert Einstein explaining his Theory of Relativity to a group of journalists.

 

[NADIAZIPPER]

Although we do have a website, it is all for customers. Currently we are considering having the sales men bring in there laptops and then turning on the built in firewall in XP or maybe installing black ice. Then once we get the laptops, we will insert a cd with updates and do a virus scan before attaching to network, then once everything appears OK and up to date giving it back to the salesmen. Only issue is if someone is not here or a salesmen forgets or whatever and accidentally releases some nasty virus into our network.

Any other ideas?

 

[Grenage]

2ffat's suggestion of putting them on your website is a good idea, you can have them on the website without the cutomers seeing them.

There is will no easy way to keep security tight without a lot of work on your behalf really, The best I can think of is:

1)Ensure AV and personal firewall is installed.
2)Install updates and definitions from CD when they come in.
3)If the laptops are purely for work ban any extra software installation.
4) Do these computers have internet access away from the office? If so, do they need it?

 

[NADIAZIPPER]

They can connect and work from home thought their own high speed connections at home or while in hotels. That is the point of the laptops

 

[jrbarnett]

I don't know how feasible this would be, and it certainly wouldn't stop every virus, but is it possible to use your network bandwidth when in the office to get the updates, but not actually log onto the LAN.

Perhaps access to the systems could be through a Citrix server or similar terminal server type setup, which could also be accessed from external addresses if the company felt it would be beneficial.

John