Embedding flash games into Excel

[randle]

Is there any way to stop the embedding of flash apps into Excel files? This seems to have caught on like wildfire here so would like to put a stop to this asap. Possibly via GPO?

[jsnetman]

The kids here started doing that with word files also. If you have the MS Office adm files in your active directory. I imported them into the user portion and then applied to the security settings Disable VBA for Office Applications. However this has some negative effects for other legitimate uses i.e interactive powerpoints and so on.

[HMCTech]

How odd some of my pupil have just recently started doing this too, this week to be exact. Wonder if there is an edupupils website!

[randle]

Unfortunately i've had to enable the use of VBA and web features via GPO so that a specific application on the network runs. I knew i would get repercussions from this.

[link470]

Wonder if there is an edupupils website!

 

lol. I agree.

 

Crazy to think that students will go this far to bypass protection and access things like games and facebook. Now THAT's a sign of addiction. No school work gets done, and it's their school time they're using to try to bypass the protection. If staff ever say "why can a student do this". Sure, I'll block it. But my question right back to them is "why aren't your students wanting to study".

[acrobson]

I have a few of these flash games in excel files which i removed from students accounts for research and development purposes. Pretty neat. Bad news for us of course. Let me know if anyone wants a copy to see what there up against. Perhaps we could compare and rate the kids tatics up and down the UK....LOL

[zag]

Yep these have caught on like wildfire here as well, not done anything about them yet though.

[Joanne]

They've been here for ages. Just leave them to it. They get bored of them after a while and find new ones. There is no stopping it so I just figure that the teachers should be watching the kids properly....

 

I used to be hell bent on stopping them, but now I couldn't give a poo.... can't delete them off their flash drives or e-mail accounts!

[cookie_monster]

There should be a killbit for office to prevent it from using flash but i haven't managed to find which one it is yet.

 

Security Vulnerability Research & Defense : The Kill-Bit FAQ: Part 1 of 3

[randle]

I disabled the VBA and Web Features part of Office but have already had teachers complaining that certain apps don't work anymore so will have to re-enable this. As mentioned maybe i should just give up on this as it's not my fault if the teachers lesson isn't interesting enough ;¬)

[rrichmond]

Is there any way to stop the embedding of flash apps into Excel files? This seems to have caught on like wildfire here so would like to put a stop to this asap. Possibly via GPO?

 

I believe there is a way to do this. From what I have seen, you need to get a "signature" of the embedded file, and then block anything with that signature.

 

Not being a programmer myself, I am not sure how it is done, but I have seen a school locally that does it this way. The IT Manager their is a programmer.... :>

 

Will need to look into it further.

[ChrisH]

I believe there is a way to do this. From what I have seen, you need to get a "signature" of the embedded file, and then block anything with that signature.

 

Not being a programmer myself, I am not sure how it is done, but I have seen a school locally that does it this way. The IT Manager their is a programmer.... :>

 

Will need to look into it further.

 

You make a hash of the file using software restriction policies.

[randle]

Trouble with this is that i'm not going to make numerous hash rules as there will be way too many