Programs Cause Remote Security Holes

As a sysadmin running a secure VPN, remote access security management is an important aspect of your job, and you know that it's not sufficient simply to authenticate remote computers accessing the network and assume that the data within the network remains secure. You must also ensure that each of those client systems are secured by personal firewalls, virus scanners, and password best practices.

However, one frequently overlooked aspect of this remote access security scenario is that most sysadmins allow software that is known to have huge security problems to run on these otherwise protected computers. Internet Explorer and Outlook in particular have received a great deal of attention from the security community and their use should be prohibited if possible. There are less dangerous, commercially viable alternatives such as Firefox and Eudora that you could push your company to adopt.