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Automated External Writable Media Controls | Week 8

Automated controls are a Godsend for Information Security departments. They can be universally applied, tracked, and easily accessible during an audit review. Today I am going to discuss one automated control specifically and that is our company’s external writable media policy. 

Per policy, all non-approved writable media is prohibited from being read by any company device. This policy extends to servers too. Gone are the days where employees can put thumb drives or the occasional SD card into any laptop and transfer files. In recent times with the transition to Office 365 and cloud storage, such a policy is easily forgettable. 5 years ago however when the policy was put into place, it was a radical change that generated a lot of push back from our employees. 

Here’s how it works: our antivirus software which is installed and configured on the base image of every laptop and desktop we use has a rule applied to it. When a writable device is detected, unless the MAC address falls within a certain range of whitelisted devices, the writable media will be blocked by the system. This allows automated controls to protect against the unauthorized transmission of PHI and PII from encrypted corporate systems to non-encrypted ones. Only certain brands of thumb drives were allowed with built in keypads to unlock them. These were distributed among users upon request. 

All in all, the control was majorly effective. Although there was pushback at first and some disruption to user workflows, the whitelisted devices were distributed when users reached out to our IT department. After a short time, everyone who had a business need to transfer data via external media had an approved drive. The rest of the employees were unaffected by the change. Most importantly, this new control ensured HIPAA compliance and proved best HITRUST policies were being practiced when audit reviews were performed.  

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