Debbie Johnson
EDET 619/ Summer 2003
Computer Wellness Interview
July 22, 2003
Quannah McDaniel, computer technician for Carroll County Public Schools spoke to the EDET 619 class July 10, 2003 regarding the system for detecting and avoiding virus contamination. Currently, Carroll County Public Schools is utilizing Cheyenne’s InocuLAN antivirus software. It incorporates real time monitoring and automatically scans for computer viruses.
The antivirus program looks for known signature viruses. Signature viruses are updated and uploaded every two weeks and are then automatically available. There are 5,000 to 10,000 new viruses created every week. Sometimes the program cannot “cure” a virus if it does not recognize the exact virus, but it can “quarantine” the virus until a solution can be found for the virus. Carroll County Public Schools has about 12 viruses that come into the school each week.
InocuLAN has been used since 1995 and one of its best features is the free updates. All email is scanned for viruses and notification should be sent to the person’s computer as soon as the virus is detected (Macro viruses are common computer virus.). Emails are stopped automatically if they contain viruses.
Any time files are opened up from the Internet they should be saved on a disk first and then the files can be scanned by the computer’s antivirus program. The files opened directly are not automatically scanned. All viruses are not “true viruses”. There are “hoax viruses” that really cause no harm. These are comparable to urban legends. Web sites that can help determine “hoax viruses” are and
Carroll County Public Schools uses the Novell BorderMangeras their primary filtering tool. Email is also filtered for spam. Approximately 3000 email messages are blocked each day. Additionally, division policy dictates that students are not to do random searches. Teachers are to review each web site that a student uses. Of course, at a high school level this policy is difficult to enforce and manyhigh school teachers believe that students need to learn how to do effective and appropriate topic searches.
Additionally, students at Carroll County are not allowed to use email accounts unless established by the school system. Use of the Virginia Community College's email system is prohibited which makes it difficult forteachers like myself to use the pre-established accounts since the students can not legally access them from school. The division's policy is to trust no system but its own
In conclusion as a result of this interview, I believe it is extremely important to have adequate up to date virus protection on any computer in use. Just like in medicine, prevention is usually easier than treatment. Without virus protection, you could end up with a “ dead computer”.