Technology Tips

The following contains some tips and some information that you may find valuable.
Did you know?:
  • Media Services can mass duplicate (up to 300 at a time) CD's and DVD's and offers training on how to author/create CD's and DVD's. Call x8309 for pricing or more information.
  • Every student, faculty, and staff member is apportioned personal disk space at drive H: which will be available to you no matter what machine you log into on campus.
  • The S: drive is shared space accessible to staff and faculty within your department.
  • The R: drive, aka, the courses drive, can be used to share content between faculty and students. Faculty can call x8428 to request a folder on R:.
  • The W: drive, aka, the work drive, is used to share content with student workers in some departments.
  • All network drives are regularly backed up and, in an emergency, files or past versions of files can be recovered from those backups.
Tech Terms Defined:
Malware: A general term used to refer to harmful software on a computer. 

Spyware: Programs installed on your computer with or without your knowledge that track what you are doing on your computer and the Internet. This classification of software includes items as benign as a web tracker that records the web sites you visit and sends them to someone out on the Internet. It could be as malicious as a keystroke logger which records every key you press or thing you click with your mouse to try to steal your passwords and login credentials.

Adware: A form of spyware which, in addition to capturing data from your computer, also generates pop-up ads.

Pop-Up Ads: Advertisements that open in a separate web browser window either on top "pop over ads" or under "pop under ads" the web site window you are actively using. These can be generated by the web site you are visiting or by Adware that has somehow made its way onto your machine.

SPAM: Aside from being canned meat, SPAM is also used to refer to unwanted emails sent to your email address.

Virus: The computer counterpart to the flu. A computer virus is an unwanted program that installs itself on your computer and then attempts to spread itself to other computers. There are several variants of computer viruses and are labeled based on the method they use to spread. These include but are not limited to, worms, macros, trojans, logic bombs, email viruses, etc.
You may be noticing a theme to the above terms. Here is what IT is doing to combat this bad stuff:

SPAM filtering: The Office of Information Technologies has installed a Barracuda SPAM filter to identify and filter out unwanted SPAM email. Each message that comes in to our email servers is evaluated and assigned a SPAM score. Many SPAM messages are deleted. If the filter is unsure whether a message is SPAM or not,  it will add the word "SPAM" to the subject line and deliver it to your mailbox. Other messages that do not have a high enough SPAM score are considered legitimate and are delivered unencumbered. 
The amount of SPAM has increased significantly over the past few months --both the amount we block and the amount that is not caught by the filter(s). We are investigating how we can improve, augment, or replace our existing filters. We average 35,000 incoming email messages per day. About 32,000 of those messages are SPAM.

Virus Scanning: We employ several strategies for combating computer viruses and their effects. We utilize several different antivirus packages from different vendors scanning files both at the desktop and on the server. We utilize special firewalls and scanners on our network to look for viruses or for behavior that is virus-like. We specifically scan email and email attachments before they enter and leave our email servers. Our SPAM and Web Content Filters also look for and block viruses.

Malware--Spyware,Adware,&Pop-Up Ads: Our approach to these problems is also multitiered. On the desktop, we limit what software can be installed. We also utilize popup blockers such as Google Toolbar and those built into Firefox and Internet Explorer. Our web content filter is setup to block sites that are known to originate malware. The filters and scanners that we discussed in Virus Scanning can block the "phone home" behavior of some adware. In other words, if your machine does have spyware on it, we can sometimes identify and even minimize the problems it can cause.

What can you do to limit your exposure to malware?
  • DO NOT install software that is not necessary for doing your work at Malone College. This includes screen savers, games, music streaming/sharing software, or similar.
  • DO call the Information Technologies office if you need to install something that is not already on your machine.
  • DO NOT install plug ins or other items when prompted to from web sites that you are visiting.
  • DO call the Information Technologies office if you need to install a plugin or other such device to get to web content that you need.
  • DO NOT open email attachments that are sent to you unless you are expecting it. Even if it is from someone you know. Spam and Virus creators can impersonate anyone.
  • DO NOT believe everything you read or see in email or on the web.
  • DO remember that "free" doesn't mean that there isn't a cost.
  • DO NOT give out your email address unless you really want more mail. Companies will add your address to distribution lists and may even sell your address to other companies.
  • DO sign up for a second email address on GMail, Yahoo, or similar and use that address to sign up for shipping confirmations, contests, special offers, etc that will probably end up sending you junk. You can then check that email address less frequently.
1.800.521.1146