Blocking USB devices

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Is anyone using 3rd party software to block unauthorised USB devices?

It's a requirement at my new employer, just wondering what your experiences are of the various packages out there

 

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sellotape usually does the trick. As for software I have never heard of any as I am lucky that there aren't many people in my department and if I was told to have USB device banned from being used I'd open the PCs and disconnet the USB ports.

 

Yeah, that'll work. For people who don't know how to peel sellotape off!

I've seen people glue the ports shut - that's a bit better, but not exactly a good solution if you ever decide you;re going to be a bit more lenient/deploy the workstation to someone who can be trusted/sell it/take it home to use as a test machine yourself

Seriously - take a look at DeviceWall. It has some nifty reporting features and is easy to deploy - though not free. Alternatively, you could look at locking down removable devices via a GPO - if you have (koff, koff) Vista

 

I work with retards so I'm pretty safe there

I don't use Vista but I will have a look at Devicewall

 

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I've heard good things about devicewall so will second zebs comments. We are lucky enough to have that by default in novells zenworks product so we dont have to worry about it. Just obviously make sure that you can be selective about what type of devices the software disables (dont want to buy something that disables all usb devices keyb and mouse).

ON another note there is hardware you can get that will disable usb ports... flathead screwdriver, insert, twist. Not good for the pc's capital value though!

 

Thanks for the replies guys (I guess I'm not the only one thinking about work/IT stuff on a Friday night )

Screwdrivers/Sellotape/Threats of physical violence would normally suit me but unfortunately this is a client requirement, we have to ensure that only authorised USB storage devices have access (and those permitted must be encrypted)

Vista is on very few of our machines so GPO is not really an option, also we do have to allow a certain number of devices so I think 3rd party products are the way to go for now at least.

So far I have a shortlist of Devicewall, Safend and GFI Endpoint security. Aside from GFI I have no idea on pricing, so next week I'll do a comparison of the three - if anyone is interested I'll post the results back here

 

Sanctuary is used on my planet aswell!

 

Physical violence always works, especially when your management couldn't negotiate themselves out of a paper bag.

I'm dissapointed you haven't considered the sellotape way, you could back it up with a company wide email telling them that the sellotape is there for a ****ing reason and it's got nowt to do with the computer hurting itself.

 

regedit, well I normally use registry if I want to write block on my own personal PC.