photo by mattimattila

In the wider computer system community, security can be divided into five topics.  In this multi part series I would like to talk about these five areas and how corporate IT concepts can be applied to your blog.  The five subject headings are:

• Logical Access
• Physical Access
• Segregation of Duties
• Program Change Control
• Continuity of Data Processing

In the first part of this series, I will discuss logical access.

What Is Physical Access Control

Ensuring only authorised people can physically touch or be near to your server hardware.  In corporate IT, this is done by creating secured data centres with swipe card access and high security setups.

I have worked with police IT departments where physical security is so important servers are hosted in armoured bomb proof data centres.  Your blog may not need a earth rampart around it,  but you should consider physical access controls if you are serious about blog security.

What Can Someone do to your Service with Physical Access?

With physical access comes physical damage or theft of hardware.   Dropping of power sources or removing of network cables.  Pulling out of hard disk drives or just running amok with a crow bar on your servers.

With physical access comes threats to your finally crafted blog.

Is It Really A Problem for a Blogger?

Not really, the vast majority of us have our blogs hosted on hte physical hardware of hosting providers.  The problem of physical access control has been outsources to a thrid party.

Ask Questions of Your hosting Provider

How secure is their data centre, who has access to the servers which host your blog controlled.

Ask these questions so you can be aqssured of decent physical access controls. If you are not happy with the answer from your host look around and take your blog elsewhere.

If You Host Your Own Blog

Well done, you are in the major leagues, Restrict access to your hardware, consider keeping your server is  a locked room or a purpose madeserver vault.  There are many of these locable, heavy duty server cabinets on the market.

In Conclusion

I think physical access control is not a major problem for bloggers, but check with your hosting provider to ensure your server is secured.

Next in the series

In the next part of this series, I will talk about logical access controls

Previosuly – Series Introduction