Computer security for schools
This week I was asked to discuss the computer security
software in place in my school district and what I use for security on my own
devices.
All of the computers' anti-virus software and anti-malware is
handled on a district-wide basis. I think they use McAfee, but I'm not
sure and don't have access to the system to look at the moment. The
district provides links for parents to use for learning how to keep their
children safe on the internet, and defines and describes digital citizenship.
The threats to any computer network are electronic and abstract, but the threat
to students is real and physical.
It has been my experience that the school's software does a
great job of preventing malicious software installs. No one can install
any form of software except the IT department, which prevents a lot of
inadvertent malware and damage to the system from outside sources. It's a
pain for teachers, but it solves a lot of issues.
The schools naturally have blocking
software that filters inappropriate sites, but things can slip through,
especially if students are using Google Image search. Nothing is perfect
yet, but it's pretty good, and it is continually improving. I tell my
students that if they go somewhere inappropriate by accident (which is easier
than it sounds) to let someone know what happened because "someone"
knows every site that is accessed and whose account is accessing them, and it's
better to clear things up before getting in trouble. This method can work
with middle and high school students. For elementary students, I hope
that inappropriate sites are harder to stumble into, but teachers have to be
prepared to handle that situation when it arises.
For my computers at home, I use Avast Anti-virus because it
is free and works very well. This
software has a good reputation for catching viruses that are "in the
wild", or not appearing on lists of virus definitions. This method of intercepting viruses is called
heuristics. Avast also uses virus
definitions that are updated regularly.
Heuristic monitoring creates more false positives, but it manages to
catch new viruses before they get so widespread or do a lot of damage. Viruses often spread like wildfire before they
end up on a list. Basic anti-virus and anti-malware
functions are free, but you have to pay for advanced features such as site
filtering. Firewall protection is as
important or even more than virus protection.
Viruses replicate and sometimes do damage, but hackers can steal
personal information. I currently use Windows Firewall, which is free and
included with all versions of Windows since XP Service Pack 2.
I have not had any
malicious software problems for many years.
The worst issues I have had with viruses has been a few basic viruses
that were of the memory-resident variety, in which they installed themselves in
the operating system, became active at startup and remained in memory until the
computer is shut down. They interfere
with attempts to removal and they replicate and spread to other files (and
computers) while staying in memory. I
have been fortunate to have had few encounters with bad viruses, and have
successfully removed viruses from my own computers and those of my family, too. I have had a few Trojan Horse infections, but
I was able to remove them using utilities I found online. In the early years I worked as a substitute
before the school district had good monitoring in place, I used to clean up
malware from the computers in the classrooms I was assigned to. I thought of it as being the "computer
fairy" that fixed the absent teachers' computers!
Wikipedia defines general computer viruses here, with
background and history:
I find it interesting how
viruses were first theorized by computer scientists and discussed for decades before
the technology existed to create them.
Computer worms are
discussed here:
I like the story about
helpful worms that were released to close some vulnerabilities, but had to
exploit other ones to continue moving along, and they consume bandwidth. It is for this reason that most computer
professionals consider all worms to be malware.
A detailed discussion about
viruses, worms, trojans, and rootkits can be found here:
There are very similar
articles all over the place, but this one gives a intense level of detail on
the way these malware items work without the reader's need for a computer
science background.
