One advantage (and limitation) of CIT's Virtual Desktop service is that they limit what applications you can run to the ones they host. (You can package apps for them to host.)

AWL: Application White Listing

VDI service

Today's staff desktops

Desktops with white-listing

100% whitelisting. If CIT hasn't allowed it, it won't run.

Even run-alone apps won't work unless permitted (such as putty.exe).
CIT makes tools available so IT professionals can use to package (and maintain) any application, which CIT then hosts.

If Admin access required for an install, most end-users can't install new software.

However, if software can just be used without installation, user can run it. For example, Putty.exe will work.

Can run in audit-only mode to first learn of potential impact.

See below idea for more.

Idea: Run whitelisting on existing systems which we believe could be moved to VDI

This would be a way to reality-check wisdom of such a move.

No other changes would be necessary. Users keep their systems as they are, with their current applications and set-ups, and using their current Windows OS version.

Also, this can work for Mac OS, if tools are found for that operating system. (VDI is Windows-only.)

Phases

Phases can help us think about advantages of this approach:

Phase 1: Learn tools available and what apps are being used today

Can run in audit-only mode to first learn of potential impact.

Phase 2: Have users approve or reject any non-listed apps

Chemistry IT then reviews all approved ones for consideration of adding to the white list.

Phase 3: Perhaps not do, but possible: Only allow whitelisted applications to work

Users have to wait until Chemistry IT approves any new application requested.

Technical implementation ideas

In many ways, CIT's VDI service allows less control than having Faronics's DeepFreeze on a computer. And DeepFreeze can prevent necessary updates. But what about Faronics’s Anti-Executable Enterprise, if Microsoft’s solutions (AppLocker, Device Guard) don’t meet our needs?

http://www.faronics.com/products/anti-executable/enterprise/

Resources

Faronics’s Anti-Executable Enterprise:

http://www.faronics.com/products/anti-executable/enterprise/

Microsoft AppLocker overview:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831440.aspx

Microsoft Device Guard overview:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn986865(v=vs.85).aspx

See also