Physical security

General recommendations

You should always limit access to the system console and to the supporting documentation.

Provide good physical security for the room that contains the telecommunications equipment, administrative tools, records, system programming, and other vital information. Make sensitive areas physically secure during unattended times using methods such as locked doors or automatic detection devices.

Establish and maintain a clear physical perimeter.

Ensure that you restrict access to server rooms and lock these rooms when not attended. Access to work areas should be strictly limited to authorized personnel only.

Keep the attendant console and supporting documentation in a place that is secured with a changeable combination lock. Provide the combination to only those individuals have a real need to access the premises.

Keep telephone wiring closets and equipment rooms locked.

Keep telephone logs and printed reports in locations that only authorized personnel can access.

Design distributed reports so that they do not reveal password or trunk access code information.

Provide secure trash disposal for all sensitive information, including telephone directories, call accounting records, or anything that may supply information about your communications system. Such trash should be shredded.

Schedule regular backups for your Modular Messaging servers. This will ensure timely recovery when recovery is required. See the Installation Guide (pdf) for more information.

Ensure that you have taken adequate safety precautions for other hazards, such as fire or electrical malfunctions. See the Installation Guide (pdf) for more information.

Backups

Unfortunately, backups are frequently not included when security lists are made. Even at large organizations the importance of testing backups is sometimes neglected. A backup plan is necessary to ensure that essential, electronically stored business data can be recovered in the event of a system failure or disaster. Ensure that you develop and implement proper backup procedures for the system. Also create a data backup of all those machines that should be backed up such as a desktop system with valuable data. Backups must cover more than a few days so that older versions of files can be recovered and so that there is a reasonable chance of recovering from problems, especially intruder-caused damage that goes undetected for a significant time.

Without good backups, hardware failures might cause irretrievable data loss, and recovering from an intrusion might be difficult. Back up system files regularly to ensure a timely recovery should it be required. Schedule regular, off-site backups, periodically tested, with reasonable media rotation and offsite storage. See MAS backup and restore and Backup and restore for more information on backup procedures for the MAS and the MSS.