Transparent or Clear Screen Lock or Screensaver

[MartyGold]

I have been lurking these forums for ages. I think it is about time I start a discussion of my own!

I work for a pharmaceutical company and was given the mandate to strengthen the security of the systems on the production floor. These computers display the status of various processes. We want this information to remain visible to everyone but now want to control who can actually use the system. When someone does login/unlock the system we need to audit that event.

So far the only way I have found is using a third party app called Transparent Screen Lock ( www.e-motional.com/tscreenlock.htm ). This is pretty much a transparent screensaver that you can configure to let users unlock using their own domain account credentials.

I have done some testing with this product – it seems to work as advertised and has pretty much all the options you would expect. I like the fact that users can use their own domain passwords but worry about that at the same time. My first question is: When evaluating such a product, what are the things I should be looking for? What should I be testing for?

Anyone with any experience in the pharmaceutical industry knows that security is a very big concern so I am pretty apprehensive about implementing such a product. For this reason I would like to open a discussion about my problem (i.e. securing a PC leaving the screen visible) as well as this possible solution. I will open the discussion with a number of questions.

What are my options? Does anyone have any other solutions? (Please don’t suggest locking the PC in a glass cabinet – anyone who has tried that will tell you that causes more problems than it solves)

How ‘secure’ is such a product”?

Does anyone have any experience with Transparent Screen Lock?

Has anyone encountered/solved the same problem?

Any feedback, suggestions, options, etc. would be most welcome.

mArty

[Keimos]

Hi Marty,

What OS are you using?

If Win xxxx go to NTFS, more secure although the next suggestion can be done FAT 32 but not as secure.

Create user accounts, either individually for each desktop or if server based do it that way.

It is hard to give anything precise as you have not provided enough info.

We need

OS + Network setup

To be able to help you

Any desktop arrangement will have its flaws unless linked into the above which we do not know.

Keimos

[MartyGold]

The clients are mostly WinXP with some older Win 2000 machines that will be upgraded sooner or later. They are all on a Win 2003 Domain

Anything else you need to know?

Thanks for you help

mArty

[Keimos]

Hi Marty,

If that is the case you definitely need to be on NTFS as this will enable you to allocate Users, passwords as well as access rights. FAT 32 does not allow a lot of security stuff, which is why a lot of the security updates are neded.(MS at least got something partially right)

That takes care of the network, internally, externally?, if you are using IE you can set IE to what is caled KIOSK mode where you can control what users can browse.

Kiosk is frustrating to set up but it works and applies back to IE v4 on win98.

Between the two of them you have total control over who can access your network and if they go external you also have control as kiosk mode enable you to dictate specific sites that can be visited. (Works for intranet as well)

Big Brother was there, but if that is what you need, then so be it.

Keimos