company laptops and customer networks

[rthonpm]

Re: company laptops and customer networks

I am hoping this will bring lots of comments and discussion, I am curious what others are doing. We got a directive from mgmt that under no circumstance we are to plug our work laptops into customer networks. Just this week I had to do so as customer said our copier would no longer connect to network and I proved to them that my laptop would not connect either into their network. Proved my point that copier was not at fault, no connect lights on laptop either. Very simple case only a minute to prove that their network port was dead.
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Let the discussion begin.

There's one potential flaw with this: even some smaller companies are beginning to use network access control that only allows registered devices, either by some kind of agent or by MAC registration and approval from a console, to access their network. Anything else plugged in would just get blocked or put into some kind of quarantine.

Overall, I wouldn't plug my device into anyone else's network: I don't always know what the state of their network security is, and they don't know the state of my laptop either. It's easier to just get a network tester or some kind of continuity tool to check whether there's a signal to the wall jack than to risk plugging an unauthorised device into a customer's network. I had a tech do that on a network with Access Control on it, and it didn't take long for a member of the customer's IT to come looking to track down the device.

For some of my customers that offer me access to their internal wifi, I won't use it without connecting to our company VPN so that I'm not on their network.