Port Shutter
Highly mobile devices such as ultraportable notebooks and Tablet PCs present one of the most serious and often overlooked security threats to enterprises and the government. Most often they contain customer information, account numbers, and other sensitive information. The need to keep this information safe and secure is imperative.
One way that the data can be jeopardized is through memory media. For example, according to recent published reports, American journalists discovered Afghans near a U.S. air base were selling computer equipment stolen from the American military. This equipment included USB memory sticks with extremely sensitive information.
This is known as "data leakage" – and it can happen in companies and government agencies, both large and small. The proliferation of portable USB drives, flash memory cards, and writeable CDs and DVDs poses a challenge to enforcing security policies. Often, companies tell their staffs not to use such devices, but rarely do anything to enforce it.
Portshutter is an application that solves this problem. Once installed on a mobile PC, Portshutter allows individual users to set policies that will restrict which ports are available to the end user (USB port, optical drive).
With Portshutter, you can:
- Specify which — if any — USB devices can be used
- Prevent confidential information from being copied to removable devices
- Prevent the connection of external devices, through which illicit or harmful programs might be installed or confidential or personal information might be accessed
- Temporarily restrict the use of ports when the computer is left unattended.
