P2P Software Releases Blueprints of Marine One

I just finished reading an article in InformationWeek, by Tim Wilson, regarding the leaking of Blueprints on Marine One, President Obama's helicopter, " P2P Leak Exposes Sensitive Data On Marine One". It amazes me to see the continued lack of visibility by System Administrators and Security Administrators into the endpoints on their networks.

It seems to me that if someone had been paying attention to what was on their machines, this problem could have been easily been eliminated. BigFix, a Security Configuration tool, among other things, could have instantly detected the P2P application on the endpoint as soon as it was launched. In addition to identifying the offending machine, BigFix, would then remove it, if it was instructed to do so. SIMPLE!!

Another tool that could have been used, is just about any decent NAC solution. In it's pre-connect interrogation, a "Total NAC" solution, would have identified the P2P software and prevented the offending machine from having access to the network.

I am not sure what the total price tag would have been for the offending company to implement either one of these solutions. However, I can bet you, that once the name of the offending company is released, they would most likely pay Ten Times the amount, to have prevented this breech. In addition, I can say with almost 100% certainty, the salesperson from BigFix was there to pitch the BigFix solution, and most likely, explained how this type of breech could be prevented.

I know that it is difficult to listent to all vendors claimes of their solution, however sometimes, it pays to do your homework.