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GCN Home > 05/28/07 issue

Standard desktops, special needs

Vandenberg delivers user privileges within configuration requirements

By Rutrell Yasin

Officials at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., have found a way to manage user privileges in an enterprise Windows environments while adhering to requirements for a standard desktop PC configuration mandated by the Air Force and the Office of Management and Budget.

The system lets users run specialized — but authorized — applications not included in the standard configuration without undue intervention by a system administrator.

OMB issued guidelines in March that require federal agencies to comply with standard Windows XP and Vista security requirements by Feb. 1, 2008. Having preloaded, secure configurations of Windows software on desktop PCs will let agencies tighten security and better manage desktop systems.

The OMB requirements, based on similar initiatives by the Air Force, will require agencies to restrict administrator rights on all desktop computers. OMB is expanding on the work of the Air Force, Army, Defense Information Systems Agency, National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Security Agency and Homeland Security Department to develop a standard Windows configuration.

Early start
Vandenberg started to comply with the Air Force’s standard desktop configuration in January. Before the move, base officials knew they had to develop a way to deploy desktop systems without administrative privileges while allowing users to run or install all authorized applications.

“Before this migration, there were certain groups of users that had administrative privileges on their machine so they could run these special applications,” said Mike De Bruin, senior systems engineer at RS Information Systems, an on-site contractor at Vandenberg, who manages user privileges for a squadron at the base.

The Air Force has many homegrown applications, he said. “You have your standard apps like Microsoft Office, and there are a lot of customized applications [that] required administrative privileges to run,” he said.

De Bruin’s squadron considered a couple of options before picking a solution that would let him manage 500 users and 450 desktop PCs. Currently, the standard desktop configuration environment is for Windows XP Service Pack 2.

More news on related topics: IT Security, Defense IT, IT Management, Workflow / Collaboration



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