Recommend protection on campus pls

[takkun]

Hi, I know most of you know how to protect yourselves well, I myself haven't caught a virus in years but, what would you do if you have to help someone else to stay safe in a school enviroment?

 

2 months ago I spent 2 days setting up my girlfriends laptop, windows 8.1 all security patches, the whole lot, but as many of you know people find the way to mess things up :D.

In her school the virus (or whatever it is) that hides and sometimes deletes files from usb memory sticks and replaces them with shortcuts, runs rampant, and no matter if I remove it today, I know someday soon it'll be there again because you know, students have to share/copy files all the time, all it takes is some silly bastard with a infected usb and my work is for naught, someone of her friends even convinced her of uninstalling the antivirus I had put in her laptop which made things worse.

 

My question for you is what would you do in my case? I know some of you have been through this same experience, what software do you recommend to lock down the usb infections. I'll have her install avg and malwarebytes tonight but before I do that I wanted to hear any advice you can give :), It is really frustrating sometimes trying to protect a laptop that is being used by someone else all the time.

Thanks

 

Edit, I noticed that Comodo is higher on the antivirus poll, do you guys think I should go for that instead of AVG?

[Praetor]

Disable Autorun (see Control Panel), do not give her administrator privileged (use a second account for that) and a simple free antivirus is good enough for that.

[StrikedOut]

Forget AVG, try this, http://360safe.com/totalsecurity.html. Also has sand box feature too. Teach her how to open stuff using this and she should be fine as long as she is disciplined.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Oh, I remember that virus! Someone brought a USB stick on to the campus where I was working and it did the same thing. We had to disable auto running of the USB keys via group policy, then we completely disabled the use of USB keys until we could clear up the mess that it had made.

Keep the laptop off the network, disable auto run for USB keys on her computer, and scan the USB stick each time it had been connected to a machine that is on the network. That would be what I do, I think.

[Arachno 1D]

Don't use unknown USB sticks or drives [i.e. friends] and have which ever antivirus you install scan all devices on insertion.Kaspersky is a good option and quick to pick up new variants.

[ProgRocker]

Oh, I remember that virus! Someone brought a USB stick on to the campus where I was working and it did the same thing. We had to disable auto running of the USB keys via group policy, then we completely disabled the use of USB keys until we could clear up the mess that it had made.

Keep the laptop off the network, disable auto run for USB keys on her computer, and scan the USB stick each time it had been connected to a machine that is on the network. That would be what I do, I think.

 

I believe that was Conficker. We have a Group Policy to disable autoruns. If you work for a school you can signup for Avast free for Education. http://www.avast.com/en-us/education. I'd recommend the Avast free antivirus if you don't. Definitely love the boot scan feature.

 

I usually install Ad Block Plus on the primary browser, just to prevent curious clicks. Also you want to intall the Microsoft EMET Toolkit (5.1 in your case) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2458544 

 

The best protection however is common sense. Check email links that want you to confirm your bank account, or email account (popular in schools). If she is virus prone, I'd recommend what Praetor said and make her a standard user, with a separate account with admin privileges for installs.

[Kolibob]

As someone said above, use "360 Total Security" and "Malwarebytes Anti-Malware". These are the best ones out there.

[+Xinok Subscriber²]

This might be a bit extreme, but Avast has a "hardened mode" which can block most unknown software from even running. It's more of a whitelist of trusted applications that it will allow to run. You can read about it here:

https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=142172.0

 

Otherwise, most antivirus software supports setting a password which will prevent the user from disabling or uninstalling it.

[Praetor]

OP: any news on this? My sugestion is to implement what i've said, regardless of what AV solution you got; most threats will be stopped simply because of that.

[Torolol]

Disable autorun.

Autorun an executable one of many stupid ideas that Microsoft concocted.

[T3X4S]

As someone said above, use "360 Total Security" and "Malwarebytes Anti-Malware". These are the best ones out there.

not the best....good....but not the best.

[+BudMan MVC]

What schools are you people going to??  Both schools that my sons went to required security software on their machines to be able to connect to the school network.  They provided the antivirus and its updates, and ran nac/nap to validate the stuff was running and updated before they could connect to the network.

 

These were not ivy league schools, just state schools ISU and SIU - not saying it was a DOD type setup or that everything was completely correct ;)  This was a few years back mind you so curious how they are running now.

 

But from a standpoint of trying to keep viruses and malware out of the network they were clearly on the right track, etc.  Institutions such as schools and such should provide their students with configurations/software and policies on the computers that connect to the schools network to be keep everyone on the network safe..  Sure shouldn't be a wild west network!!

[Praetor]

best protection to use in a campus..

[+E.Worm Jimmy Subscriber¹]

best protection to use in a campus..

 

 

fudge!    i was meaning to post a condom when i first saw this thread..... but i though better of it.   

now i finally though, fudge it, i am going to post it, it is funny....  

 

and you posted just before me.

 

great minds think alike?   or is it friday drinks talking?   :shifty:

[Praetor]

fudge!    i was meaning to post a condom. when i first saw this thread, but i though better of it.   

 

finally i though, fudge it, i am going to post it, it is funny....  

 

and i see your post just before me.

 

 

 

great minds think alike?   or is it friday drinks talking?   :shifty:

 

lol

 

 

here, have a cold one. Neobond is paying!