Hi all, we are hiring a remote worker and will be supplying a laptop to them. The laptop will be running a Debian variant of Linux on it.
We are a small shop and this is the first time we have entrusted somebody outside of our small pool of trusted employees.
We have sensitive client data on the laptop that they need to access for their day-to-day work.
However, if something goes wrong, and they do the wrong thing, we want to be able to send out some kind of command or similar, that will completely lock, block, or wipe the sensitive data.
We don’t want any form of spying or tracking. We are not interested in seeing how they use the computer, or any of the logs. We just want to be able to delete that data, or block access, if they don’t return the laptop when they leave, or if they steal the laptop, or if they do the wrong thing.
What systems are in place in the world of Linux that could do this?
Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated? Thank you.
Realistically the best option here is to not have the data in the laptop. So they would remote into a machine you control to access the data, or something of the sort. Regardless the laptop should have full disk encryption so if it gets stolen no data is accidentally leaked.
Other than that the best way I can think of is giving the user a non-root account and have the laptop connect to tailscale automatically so you can always ssh into it and control it if needed. But this is not ideal, because a malicious person could just not connect to the internet and completely block you from doing anything. This is true for almost any sort of remote management tool you would be able to find.
First part is what I was thinking - have the sensitive data on a server for the laptop to access. Of course an unscrupulous user can always save any data they want. But it’s totally normal for companies to give temp employees access to their internal data. Their standard method of protection is to make the person sign an NDA. The threat of expensive legal action deters most people from violating it.
ScaleFusion does this.
+1 for going with a third party on something like this. Your small shop is an expert in whatever they’re doing, don’t try and recreate someone else’s buisness thinking it will be easy
You need to find someone you trust. There’s no technology that can prevent someone disclosing data if it’s their job to work with that data.
If you treat people with respect and pay them well, you will be amazed at what they give back. Especially autistic people, they tend to have high personal integrity.
However, if something goes wrong, and they do the wrong thing, we want to be able to send out some kind of command or similar, that will completely lock, block, or wipe the sensitive data.
You’re assuming you’ll have a network connection and that sensitive data is all in the same place.
Short of remotely unlocking an encrypted disk on every single boot… and even then…
VM behind a VPN with a firewall that blocks everything except the rdp protocol and no sudo access?
I second the idea that this is a bad idea, but…
Maybe a remote desktop solution is what you want, keep your data local or in your cloud account and provide remote access to a machine that can use it?
You could roll your own self destruct script that will wipe the machine on boot if it hasn’t phoned home in a while. You would want to lock the bios and use secure boot. Qubes may have some relevant features.
Also, consider getting a Chromebook instead. ChromeOS is already a walled garden and I think they are remote wipeable and they can run a Linux vm supported by elgoog.
MacOS + JAMF or similar
Linux almost impossible
Jesus fucking Christ. You are either up to no good or have no business in role you currently occupy.
