DeviceLock

This tool from Smart Line is your one stop solution to centrally control all the ports across all machines on your network

Thursday, July 20, 2006

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This software from SmartLine is a good option to prevent users from stealing data from systems by blocking access to all commonly used ports such as USB, WiFi, Bluetooth, Serial, FireWire and Infrared. It even controls ccess to other devices such as CD-ROM drives, floppy drives, and PCMCIA slots. Nowadays, it's very easy for anybody to pull data out of a system thanks to the plethora of devices that work on these ports. Regular security mechanisms like firewalls can't prevent such usage, which is where this software comes in handy. It installs easily on your Windows domain or workgroup server and requires a one step configuration, wherein it prompts to choose the devices you want to lock. This software provides a finer level of control over USB ports, as most of the devices are available for this port. It provides specific options that include enabling/disabling USB mice and keyboards, USB printers, scanners, storage devices, etc. What this means for instance, is that you could allow a user to access a USB printer, keyboard, and mouse, but not a flash drive.

Once the software is installed, it easily integrates with your Active Directory Domain. You can set policies for access permissions that can be categorized for computers, local users or domain users as per your requirements. The software comes with a Device Lock Service that has to be installed on all computers you want to control including your server. This service can be installed from the 'Device Manager' window itself that provides a central management console. We checked its ability to block various ports, including a serial port, a CD-Drive, and a USB flash drive. One nice feature we found in the software was its ability to centrally control all access, and you could even set pre-defined schedules for users. So you might block certain ports for certain types of devices during a particular time, but allow it during another time.

The Device manager window has customized views. You can view all resources on your network on the basis of categories viz. Domains, Types, and Computers. The difference between first two is that the former gives the view of Domain Controllers, Additional Domain Controllers and servers, like database, print servers, etc in a tree format. While the types options displays the same entries, it can't be expanded in a tree form. The software is not limited to portable devices only as it can even prevent users from formatting a hard-disk on a particular computer. Another good feature in the software is the 'USB Device White List'. Devices in this list are always allowed access without any restrictions. Thus, while providing fine control over devices, the software also gives a degree of freedom for devices that don't need any monitoring.

The service options dialog in the Device Manager window allows specifying policy settings for a particular device type

Bottom Line: The software provides much wanted security from information theft within the organization especially using portable drives and media. It covers a complete list of vulnerable ports and devices. Bundled with an economical price tag, it is a definite requirement for organizations who fear data theft from their systems.

Anadi Misra

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