Al_B on 5/4/2009 at 20:45
You can immediately solve about 99% of your problems by keeping all computers up to date with the latest security patches. I'm a little disturbed that someone was able to bring in an unchecked computer and hook it up to your network and that they apparently managed to crash the company's server.
It sounds like your biggest problem is management - not techincal. I know you're probably not in a position to change that but the business cost of having to deal with even one virus infection on a badly managed network can be immense.
If you have to cater for people (or their kids) bringing in their laptops at least invest in a separate switch so they can be isolated from the main network. Ideally install a decent firewall to manage this too. Then (and only then) worry about software on your computer. I like to work from the principle that a computer with no anti-virus, no anti-spyware and no firewall should be safe. Then, just add enough to be safe against the uncontrollable.
Enchantermon on 5/4/2009 at 23:02
Quote Posted by nickie
. . . a Hosts file.
That's a good way to keep people off of sites you don't want them on. Plug the IP address of the company's website or some other site to which you allow access into the host file and associate it with the domain names of the sites you
don't allow access to. Then, whenever they type in the URL of the disallowed site, they're redirected elsewhere.
Just make sure you have name resolution set to check the host file
before the DNS server, or this won't work.
Of course, there are ways around this, but at least it should keep those who are less tech-savvy off of those sites.
