VA Control Storage Devices

March 2007

VA to control, restrict use of mobile storage devices.

In the next month, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will let employees plug into its network only those mobile storage devices issued by the chief information officer’s office. Robert Howard, the department’s CIO, said Tuesday, March 6, he will issue only 1G and 2G thumb drives and will not allow anything larger onto the network unless he approves it. The
mobile storage devices also must be certified under the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Federal Information Processing Standard 140_2, he added. Besides controlling thumb drives, Howard aims to have a standard configuration for smart phones and personal digital assistants, eliminate unencrypted messages that travel on the VA’s network and reduce
the number of virtual private networks by the end of fiscal 2007. The department also is relying more on public_key infrastructure (PKI) and Microsoft’s rights management system (RMS) in its Outlook e_mail system to do a better job of securing e_mail and documents.
Source: http://www.fcw.com/article97837_03_06_07_Web