CEEMIT

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Secure Your PC - Windows & Mac Security

Top Topics
Adding SEAS students to the Microsoft Campus Agreement being debabated. Stay tuned.

IT Benefits To Know About
CEEM PC Lab

Department

Grads

Software to know about!

=Planned=

There are many steps to securing your personal computer. Columbia has outlined many of them here:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/security/users/index.html

CEEMIT has a similar viewpoint to CUIT regarding security with only a little variation, as noted below:

Operating System Updates (Mac & PC)
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/security/users/updates.html
These are essential to keeping your computer safe. CEEMIT recommends that you set your OS to automatically check and install updates every night. Additionally, you should get into the habit of manually checking the OS updates at least once a week to ensure that updates are indeed loading in properly. Some updates will require a user agreement before they can be installed, thus they will not auto-install.

Which OS Updates do I install?
CEEMIT recommends installing all offered updates. On windows this is the High Priority, Software Optional and Hardware Optional categories. Continue to check the site until you see (0) updates available in all categories.

Antivirus Software
Use Anti-virus and keep it up to date
Definitions: virus, trojan, worm, dialers, etc.
Antivirus software is your second line of defense against malicious software. Ideally, if your OS is up to date, it may prevent many malicious attacks, but there are many "ports of entries" for malware to get into your computer (for example, email, the disk drives, usb, file sharing, etc.). If they do get through, your antivirus helps contain them. In order for your antivirus to work properly, it should be setup to automatically update every day, do a full system scan one or two times a week and be manually checked weekly to make certain its is doing its job. A non-functional or disabled antivirus program does not protect very well =D
Get your free copy of Symantec Antivirus from CU

Software Firewall
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/security/users/firewall.html
Computers were originally designed to communicate openly, freely and to anyone or anything that would listen. The original intent had very little thought about security. Still today, computers will try to talk to anything that will listen. A firewall gives you control over who you will allow your computer to communicate.

Malware Protection
Definitions: Malware (spyware, adware, keyloggers, RATS, bots, rootkits, etc).
Columbia does offer Pest Patrol free. This is a decent program, but it only runs in administrator mode. Although most people use administrator mode at home, Microsoft recommends that users use a restricted profile for normal tasks. Thus, CEEMIT currently recommends Microsoft Defender for Malware protection. Another one that does an ok job, is free and has no malware is Spybot-S&D http://www.spybot.info/en/mirrors/index.html

 

 
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