Is there a cure for the new remote access mega-headache?

High-speed Web access from employee residences may be your next big security problem. This hazard assessment tool qualifies what to do.

They're not rare curiosities anymore. The number of residences in the United States with high-speed access to the Internet is climbing rapidly. By 2004, the Gartner Group Inc. of Stamford, Conn., predicts, perhaps 16 million homes will have either a cable modem or a form of digital subscriber line (DSL) access to the Web. Depending on the type of cable television network or DSL implementation, you could have telecommuters or other types of residential users capable of downloading data from your servers at 1.5 megabits per second.

And it's not just the speed of the connections that is worrisome. Cable modem and DSL implementations are always on, as long as the PC is switched on. Imagine a telecommuter's PC that is running file transfer protocol software, so it is functioning as a file server for others. If that PC is also connected to your corporate network over an unprotected TCP/IP link, then the whole world could cruise through your data files.

This interactive management tool will help you determine the appropriate policy on high-speed Internet access to corporate servers. It is not a tool to determine corporate data security policies. Furthermore, it is not a tool to determine remote access policies in general. The Enterprise developed this Rule of Thumb decision tree and estimating tool about high-speed remote access based on information provided by a number of analysts, vendors and users. John Pescatore and John Girard of the Gartner Group consulting firm provided especially important expertise. We are grateful for their support.

Gartner Group is an industry leading research and consulting firm that addresses a broad range of technologies. For more information, go to its Web site.

Other useful articles on security and high-speed residential access include:
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2434722,00.html
http://www.zdnet.com/enterprise/stories/main/0,10228,2486490,00.html
http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/vpn/0117vpn1.html