12wesley

I now have a path forward until our new servers are installed and setup. How can I restrict access to the usb ports in windows 7? I have disabled auto run, I do not wish to completely disable the usb ports in the bios or device manager.

Thanks for your replies, The best interim solution: not use their network all, and only use the air card supplied by my company. This complicates my work flow but is secure. Is a paid VPN a good alternative? I would only use the air card, if so which one would you suggest? I think digip mentioned tethering a cell phone, now is this more secure than an air card? both are on the same cellluar network. I recently changed laptops, the new one has not connected their network. I have only used the air card. Should I be concerned about software installed on the new laptop without my knowledge? Vako, talking the IT manager he seems competent enough, however he does manage a small to midsize company and may not have all the resources a larger company would. Your correspondence is actually a second opinion and causes more concern that originally thought by my IT department. I will address with them next week.

Vako, thanks for the reply you are correct, your patience is appreciated, as I don't want to disclose any of the parities involved, or be to descriptive. My concerns are that this 'company' has the potential to view or intercept email (outlook exchange client). This information would provide inside information on how bidding would be done in future contracts against multiple competitors. These accounts affect up 50-80% of their overall business within a years period. Possibly the heightened awareness of computer security has made me more alert to my surroundings, and this maybe nothing at all. The thing that stands out is when the buffalo router was installed I asked the IT manager why the change, it was a linksys N router set to wpa/wpa2 security. He stated he was concenred about security of that model of router which sounded feasible. But when I connected to the network the security was set to WEP, and the surrounding WAPs were set to wpa/wpa2. I inquired as to which was more secure(i knew already) he told me WEP. Maybe this is to separate my connection from the internal network as you pointed out. Additionally my pointer behaves erraticly and seems to have a mind of its own. It usually stops after ~3 seconds of me moving the pointer, this does not happen if Im not connected. The little decaffinateID applet did detect a change in the mac address and warned of a new ip in the cache? not 100% sure what this is, the mac address does concern me, the new ip in the cache could be from a https site or other request that I initiated? I have taken the security measures you suggested, I have installed linux mint and use it as much as possible but have some programs that cant run on linux even with the wine emulator. I have started connecting only when needed and disconnecting once complete. I did discuss direct VPN with my cooperate office to resolve, currenlty this is not feasible. Admin has explained that the overseas servers have been taxed out to the point affecting speed. Additional servers are being added in USA to alleviate the load, once this phase is completed (3-6 months) a direct VPN will be available. As I mentioned before the admin suggested the GSM air card as an alternative? Is this really secure? If you have any more suggestions, let me know.

digip thanks for your reply but, you would be close minded to believe that your 'business' scenario is the only one. Many situations call for different solutions, this is the purpose of my post. The company has a very good reason to allow me access to the internet with no restrictions. The company would acquire a desktop workstation if I request, but this is not practical for my purpose. I'm looking for a path forward with this issue. My IT department has supplied me with a GSM air card, and advised this is the best security in this type of situation. Currently the GSM reception is less than optimal, the company is in the process of purchasing a GSM repeater tower to increase the reception for my air card. I realise that my IT department will not always have the best solution for each situation. I interact with other companies at this same level, this one in particular seemed suspicious, thus my post. I appreciate any helpful replies, 12wesley

How would I go about setting up a SSH?

I don't understand how it all works but these are my thoughts the wireless router is installed on a networked pc. Then routed to a central server and out to the Internet. Seeing how the internal network can have several hops before hitting the Internet I would think my traffic is logged (possibly the first networkedpc) before actally tunneled or encrypted by a VPN or other software. I installed a program decaffinatid from irongeek it logs events and flashes a message at the task bar. I get The below warnings new ip in cache mac address changed

I think someone is hacking my laptop at work. Im a contractor and not a direct employee of the company. I have no intranet services only internet. What can I do to stop them? Im running windows 7 I got suspicious when the linksys wireless router was replaced with a buffalo router. The linksys router was functioning properly. The admin removed the wired connection from the wall, he wanted access to my computer to setup the wireless router, but I quickly setup to keep him off of my laptop. I running hot spot shields which is a type of VPN, not sure how safe this is. RDP, File/printer sharing are turned off wesley