Chapter 5: Physical and Environmental Security - Locks

From a physical security standpoint, locks are used to delay intruders. They should never be the only method used for physical protection. There are many different kinds of locks, and they can be used for various things. However, the right type of lock should be used for each purpose. For example, you would not want to use a simple tumbler lock for the main door of your facility because it can be easily picked. In this post, I want to focus on ways a particular device can be physically locked. Switch controls cover up on/off switches so that important hardware is not powered off by accident or when it not supposed to be off. Slot locks are used to make sure that pieces of hardware stay in the same physical location. Port controls are used to prevent the unauthorized use of disk drives or other ports such as a USB port. Peripheral switch controls are used to make sure that items such as keyboards as mouse are not taken away from where they are supposed to be. Another method to do this is called cable traps, which lock up the device's cable so that it cannot be removed from its station.