12.2. Securing the Hardware

The most direct way to access the valuable information in the DW/BI system is to gain physical access to the computers on which the system is running. You absolutely must implement the following simple but essential recommendations for your production system, and should think very seriously about doing so for the development and test servers as well.

  • Place the server computers in a locked room with restricted access.

  • Disable the option to boot from either the floppy or CD-ROM drive. Consider removing the floppy drive.

  • Consider creating a power-on password, and protect the motherboard's settings with a CMOS-access password.

  • Consider using a computer case that supports intrusion detection and can be locked. Don't leave the key dangling from the computer.

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