Simon Says – Musings of a Technology CTO

Last week Noah Shachtman of Wired reported that a new cyber-control order has been issued by Maj. Gen. Richard Webber to prevent the us of removable media under threat of Court-Martial. The order demands that airmen:

immediately cease use of removable media on all systems, servers, and stand alone machines residing on SIPRNET

Further in the order adds:

Unauthorized data transfers routinely occur on classified networks using removable media and are a method the insider threat uses to exploit classified information. To mitigate the activity, all Air Force organizations must immediately suspend all SIPRNET data transfer activities on removable media

Of course, blocking the use of removable media is not new – earlier this year a total ban of USB Stick use was in place following a massive worm infection introduced from a rogue usb stick. Operational Buckshot Yankee as it was termed then.

Noah closes with the comment that any remediation technology “Won’t be ready to deploy for years” – I hope he’s going to be surprised, because the technology is ready to deploy right now.