itschad Posted March 30, 2009 Posted March 30, 2009 Currently our policy is to allow students to bring in flash drives. Each core area teacher at the begining of every year is to instruct students how to properly scan for viruses. However, I am now convinced that not one kid is scanning them. I know its important to allow flash drives to be used to bring data from home. However what concerns me is what else they bring in from home. I even had one kid bring porn in and sell it to other kids. He would then copy it to their flash drive. When we were given the bad citizens flash drive, it had over 22 viruses. I hate to block flash drives, but I am looking for any help in what to do about them.I am curious how you all handle them. Chad
powdarrmonkey Posted March 30, 2009 Posted March 30, 2009 (edited) Where I am now it's not really a problem, but in my last place I used to use USBDLM to force an AV scan on insertion of a disk. Really, though (and I've said this before, and still do), technical solutions will only get you so far - there will always be a way around them. The key to something like this is a cultural shift, and the only way to get that is to have every member of staff on board and supporting you in your AUP. Edited March 30, 2009 by powdarrmonkey can't type on mondays 1
AngryTechnician Posted March 30, 2009 Posted March 30, 2009 I even had one kid bring porn in and sell it to other kids. He would then copy it to their flash drive. When we were given the bad citizens flash drive, it had over 22 viruses. We do allow flash disks. Our system is pretty locked down and so far we have not had any incidents of viruses having any impact. A student we recently caught trading porn in this manner was suspended, and his parents called in as a result. Word got around. This tends to have more of an effect than any technological block we try, and we don't think it will be happening again any time soon.
EduTech Posted March 30, 2009 Posted March 30, 2009 We allow USB Sticks, Students are reminded how virus are becoming more common now on a memory stick and thats how there being passed around so we urge them to scan there sticks regular. When a student/staff inserts the USB stick it does get scanned by Sophos Straight away. Our Systems are petty locked down so if their is a virus it tends to be isolated on 1 machine or if the person has moved round then any machine they have used. James.
itschad Posted March 30, 2009 Author Posted March 30, 2009 I agree with most of what is said here. I think its a very fine line, and I sway back and forth between locking things down in a healthy manner, and being overly aggressive. We use Symantec Endpoint Protection which does a fairly good job of finding things on the flash drive. However, I maybe need to research if it is possible to scan upon it being inserted. Let me put this disclaimer out, I am not a huge Symantec fan but it is provided for free....
itschad Posted March 31, 2009 Author Posted March 31, 2009 Our HOD has even gone so far as to confiscate infected USB drives, which must be collected by the parent, who's then given a short information letter about virus infection and the damage it causes. See this is great, its a simple thing however I didnt even think of this. Thanks alot!
Kamran7860 Posted April 5, 2009 Posted April 5, 2009 We allow usb sticks but the stick is scanned automatically when its connected. I have got a few complaints about files being deleted by the AV. However better safe then sorry. I don't think you can really block usb sticks. Plus i would recommend you to disable auto run from GPO.
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