April 15, 2005 — CSO — Wireless When ponies delivered mail, fleet management meant keeping everyone in line at the hitching post. Today, the ponies are gone, and the U.S. Postal Service uses wireless technology to manage industrial vehicles that sort the mail. New security applications can now monitor and lock down vehicles.
In January, the USPS contracted with I.D. Systems and Unisys to develop an enterprisewide wireless asset tracking system dubbed Pivms, or Powered Industrial Vehicle Management System. The tracking technology will help the USPS manage industrial vehicles such as forklifts and secure 460 postal facilities nationwide.
Here's how it works. Vehicles are wired with movement and impact sensors that are connected to a wireless transceiver inside the vehicle's cab. A keypad log-in on the hardware links to the vehicle's ignition system, and to a management server at each facility. To start a vehicle, an employee enters his or her identification number on the keypad. That information is then checked against an onboard database of authorized drivers. An unauthorized driver cannot start the vehicle. So in addition to tracking a vehicle's location, the technology can control vehicle access.
The wireless asset tracking system allows fleet managers to control equipment and vehicles used by the USPS. For example, vehicle collisions were notoriously difficult to detect and track in busy mail processing centers. With Pivms, onboard sensors will detect the impact of a collision, log it and identify the employee who was driving the vehicle at the time. The tracking technology is similar to systems utilized by other companies that manage large fleets of equipment, such as DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Target and the U.S. Navy.
Read more about data protection in CSOonline's Data Protection section.
The challenge of true data protection spans databases, internal and external networks, physical and offsite storage, business partners and more. These resources offer expert perspective from the basics through specific key elements of data protection strategies.
Network security basics
Protection, detection, and reaction—those are the three underlying principles your security program must embody
Computer incident detection, response, forensics
Richard Bejtlich shows how to measure and improve the maturity of your incident response
A few good IT security metrics
Stop counting blocked malware attachments and measure things that can contribute to meaningful change
5 key cloud security trends
Cloud security is evolving rapidly—stay on top of it
IT risk assessment frameworks
How to do end-to-end encryption
How to compare and use enterprise antivirus
Also find sample data protection policies in CSO's tools, templates and policies library
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- Data Privacy and Protection in Production Environments: New Research from Ponemon Institute
- FireEye Advanced Threat Protection KnowledgeVault
- Five Tips to Consider in a Data Security Strategy for Smartphones and Tablets
- Moving Your Email to the Trusted Cloud
- Comprehensive Server Protection
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I got an email yesterday asking if teenage hacking is on the rise. At first I balked. Teenage hackers have always been in abundance, so the question seemed stupid to me. Then I remembered something about teens that the SANS Institute's Alan Paller mentioned at a conference last week. Let's start with that press release, which framed the scenario this way: - Busted: When security tools fail
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