Primer on Colo Security

What are the security risks faced by colocation and data center operators, and how do you spot them? Jonathan A. Zdziarski of Network Dweebs has posted a secuity paper outlining the ways terrorists might try to get around data center security, and possible solutions. Much of what he discusses will be familiar territory to security-minded providers. Attention is paid to attacks from within the data center, rather than external threats.

Zdziarski emphasizes the importance of knowing your customers, and sees risk in some providers' limited scrutiny of new customers and the equipment they are installing. "The bottom line is: how difficult is it for anybody out there to sneak their way into your facility as a tech or a customer, and sneak in a dangerous device?," he writes. "If the answer is 'not very difficult' then you have some vulnerability in your policies that could potentially expose you to an attack of any type."