Subtitles of the Movie

Whether for good or for bad, physical security is becoming more and more important for everything, including servers and computer networks. So physical security to computers that house critical information is a must in most organizations. So we should certainly limit access to the server room, ensure that locks exist on all the doors, establish anti-theft devices for hardware - both software types of devices as well as physical devices like padlocks, a server cage can be used. And some of the newer forms are biometrics - for example fingerprint identification or iris eye identification before we can get information. Special alarms and even cameras. A camera in an area where it's obvious that the camera exists will keep a lot of people from doing anything that they normally wouldn't do. In other words, if I know that I'm being watched, then I am going to mind my p's and q's. If I don't think I'm being watched, then somebody might be able to talk me into or I might be able to talk myself into trying something that I otherwise wouldn't. So cameras that people know exist and they know that those cameras are watching them are one of the best ways to physically deter people from stretching their limits so to speak. So physical security in a network is extremely important. And the things that we should keep physically secure are (of course) the servers and the server room. But also anything that connects to that room. And organizations that hold very very secure data, like governmental organizations and large corporations, even the cables themselves are kept physically secure so that people can't tap information. Fiber-optic cable is used for additional security. It used to be that if we setup our network correctly at first, then we could consider that we were secure. Because no one was going to actually attack us. We just needed to make sure that the information was setup in such a way that it would be secure from the average curious person. But now that's not the case - in many cases that organizations have to take into account that somebody may be actually proactively coming after their data or coming after their network. So physical security becomes very important. And even an occasional hub or a switch that we might locate in a closet has to be considered. Because someone could connect to that device, and therefore get information about our network. And this is a balance that Network Administrators have to think about. Because having those types of hubs and switches in alternate locations can be an asset for troubleshooting. So we need to keep good physical security, but we also need to have our tools in place for troubleshooting. And we'll discuss troubleshooting in our next chapter.