Training
KVM, HDBaseT and secure meetings
Starts from what actually travels in an HDMI cable and ends with the uncomfortable question: what happens when the protection is inconvenient enough that people work around it.
The sessions
What travels in the cable
Who it is for: AV designer, IT technician, security officer.
After the session you will be able to:
- List the five two-way channels in an HDMI connection and describe what each can carry
- Explain why a shared display is a common node between every domain connected to it
- Describe what HDBaseT carries beyond the picture, and point out where in an HDBaseT topology the security boundary is not
- Separate galvanic isolation from directional restriction and give an example of where confusing them leads wrong
Content and exercise: 15 min walk-through, 15 min joint analysis of a real table cable nest, 15 min exercise where participants draw signal paths and mark direction on a room they are responsible for.
Domain separation at the workstation
Who it is for: Security officer, system owner, buyer.
After the session you will be able to:
- Name the four properties that separate a secure KVM switch from an ordinary one
- Explain why HID is the only device class normally permitted across a domain boundary
- Describe what positive disconnect means and why a disabled port is not a disconnected one
- Review a workstation design and find the shared object between the domains
Content and exercise: 15 min the four properties, 15 min a review of an actual workstation design, 15 min exercise where participants find the shared objects.
The meeting room
Who it is for: Security officer, facility manager, meeting chair.
After the session you will be able to:
- Decide what has to be physically disconnected when a room changes level
- Explain why the changeover cannot be a setting in a control system
- Describe the audio paths in a room with two domains, including the ones nobody draws
- Write the checklist used at the changeover
Content and exercise: 15 min the changeover as a physical procedure, 15 min work through a real room, 15 min participants write the checklist for their own room.
Designing so it is not worked around
Who it is for: All of the above, plus whoever places the order.
After the session you will be able to:
- Explain why a protection that is inconvenient is a protection that gets worked around
- Identify the three points in your own installation where the workaround is most likely
- Weigh a security property against the operational cost of it, out loud and on the record
- Design a change that removes the reason for the workaround rather than forbidding it
Content and exercise: 15 min the mechanism, 15 min participants describe a workaround they have seen, 15 min redesign so the reason for it disappears.
Before the session
Background reading and equipment
Training
Four tracks, seventeen sessions, built from real installations.
Next step
A track that is not here?
These four grew out of the questions we are asked most. If your question is a different one, it is probably worth a session of its own — tell us what it is.