It’s that time of the year again and now I have more of a challenge this year as I have more systems to refresh. Every 2-3 months I do a complete system wipe and rebuild of my primary systems (now 16) to give them a clean start and a fresh look and feel. During the year I test so many products and solutions from the industry and once I have tested and like something, it gets added to my approved applications list and is allowed to be installed on my primary systems. It also give me a fresh build as I get rid of old install files or hidden threats that may have been left behind and now the system breathes and runs much better.

These are different from my test boxes that I may refresh daily, weekly or after a few months depending on what i’m testing on it and the period needed to properly deal with it.

As a senior executive on various committees, boards and teams, I take my security practices very seriously as a compromise on my end could lead to mass messaging or some kind of threat coming from my network which could lead to serious issues for my recipients. I am very vigilant about keeping the best of best practices for my organizations infrastructure with regular reviews and updates. As a security professional responsible for numerous organizations infrastructure, I practice these steps to protect myself and those who I collaborate with and the responsibility to protect the people and data in them. One can never be too cautious in this time and age of new and emerging technology and threats and so I try to stay on the cutting edge of the security issues.

So it is that time and my first refresh of which I am somewhat happy for as i’m getting ready to move most of my Vista boxes over to Windows 7. I have been playing around with some new products and solutions and will be moving over to them during this refresh cycle. The timing of this new Conficker worm couldn’t be any worse (or maybe better) as i’m refreshing between March 31st-April 1st. I’m also rolling out a hot new UTM ~Unified Threat Management~ device today as well and I look forward to its protective features and enhancements.

So away I go to start prepping for my refresh and trying to keep up on this Conficker issue which has set me back a day in my schedule.

Thank you and have a great day,

~Brett A. Scudder~

The IT Security Attaché