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Tag: Web Reputation Services

"Safe(r) web browsing" PowerPoint slides online

Posted on by Betsy Edwards

For those who missed the IT security roundtable April 9, it’s comforting to know that presenter Harvard Townsend (K-State’s chief information security officer) diligently documents the details in his PowerPoint files. The Safe(r) Web Browsing presentation (50-slide PowerPoint) that’s now online serves as a realistic roadmap of the latest dangers and defenses for K-Staters who want to be safer-than-sorry when browsing the Web.

As Townsend has said before, “The scary thing is you don’t even have to click on anything – just visiting a site with malicious code can initiate a download that installs malware on your computer without you knowing it.”

Slide 29 from the Safe(r) Web Browsing presentation
Slide 29 from the Safe(r) Web Browsing presentation (click the image to download the PowerPoint)


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IT security roundtable April 9: Safe(r) web browsing

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

Did you know your computer can get infected simply by visiting a website and not clicking on any links? Furthermore, it doesn’t have to be a nefarious site — many reputable, popular websites have inadvertently hosted malicious advertisements. If that isn’t scary enough, one study found that 13 percent of Google searches for popular or trendy topics yielded malicious links near the top of the search results.

Web browsing is now the most popular target used by hackers to try to take over control of your computer, so this month’s IT security roundtable will discuss how to browse the Web safely, or at least lower the risk of infecting your computer, since there is no way to be 100 percent secure browsing the Web these days.

Join us 9-10:30 a.m. Friday, April 9, in Union 213 to learn about:

Update on Mac antivirus protection at K-State

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

For many years, K-State has provided antivirus protection for Mac users with  Symantec Antivirus (SAV) for Macs corporate edition (SAV). The bad news is that our license for SAV expires Oct. 27, and given the current budget challenges, there are no funds to renew. The good news is that Trend Micro now has a Mac antivirus client that is included in our site license, so it is already paid for with full support until March 2012 for all faculty, staff, and student office and home Mac computers.

SIRT, K-State’s Security Incident Response Team, is in the process of testing a beta release of a Trend Micro Security for Mac (TMSM) version 1.5. In fact, engineers from Trend Micro are on campus this week (July 27-28) to help install, configure, and test TMSM on servers and Mac computers around campus.  Unlike SAV, TMSM is a manageable product and includes more security features, such as support for Web Reputation Services. Continue reading “Update on Mac antivirus protection at K-State” →

Trend Micro Web Reputation Services enabled to help battle malware infections

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

To assist in the battle against malware that daily threatens K-State computers, Web Reputation Services (WRS), also known as “Web Threat Protection Services”, was enabled last week in K-State’s Trend Micro OfficeScan for those managed by the central IT Trend Micro server. WRS augments the antivirus and antispyware protection already offered in OfficeScan to add another layer of prevention against the rapidly evolving, increasingly sophisticated, quickly spreading, and growing number of malicious threats faced by K-Staters as they browse the Internet.

Web Reputation Services works by checking every web address you attempt to visit in a web browser and blocking access to those found in a list of known malicious sites. WRS works with all major web browsers, including Internet Explorer and Firefox.

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