Security

This lecture was produced several years ago by Kathy Hansen, a CIS instructor here at Shasta College. Most of what she says is still accurate . . . any questions, don't hesitate to ask. 

To begin with, some smart aleck once wrote that there are only two ways to make a computer secure.  

The point here is that your computer and your data can never be completely secure.  Even if you are not online, it won’t be secure from our own worst enemy—operator error or just plan computer failure.  We must always be careful (especially when we are tired) how we format, disk copy, copy, delete/erase.  It is certainly not uncommon to neglect to follow good practices and forget to save every 10 minutes (or ever).  Just while getting this class on line, I lost the larger part of one TOPIC I had worked on for a few hours, when suddenly the computer warned of closing down because of an illegal error.  I couldn’t believe it, NOT ME!  I normally have no pity on my students when they tell me they’ve lost everything and I smugly say, “But of course you saved?”  I certainly should have known better.  If we are under time pressures we tend to forget--just when it’s going to hurt the most!  

Be careful to THINK before you format a disk.  Are you sure there isn’t something on there that’s important to you?  Same goes with disk copy, because an exact duplicate is made of the source disk and the target disk is cleaned off entirely (except for the new replacement).  THINK before you delete a file or folder, save one file over another, or replace an old file with a new file.  The biggest mistake I see my beginning students make is to snag the Save Option instead of the Open Option from the FILE MENU.  They think they are opening a file when what they are doing is saving a nice new BLANK page over their good file.  Then there is puzzlement when they have a file listed, but every time they try to open it, it gives them nothing but a blank screen.  

Because a lot of things can happen to our data, we must backup.  When should you backup?  Anything that is important to you.  And it is important to you if it is going to cost you time or money.  For a busy student, your time is important.  So if it will cost you time if you lose a file, you should back it up.  

In business there are three types of backup: 

1                    FULL BACKUP--full backup of the hard drive. 

2                    INCREMENTAL BACKUP—backs up anything since the last backup.

3                    DIFFERENTIAL BACKUP—backs up anything since the last FULL backup. 

A business will have a backup procedure that must be adhered to.  The frequency and type of backup is related to how important the information is to human life or the protection of the business.  Since some computers offer actual life support or provide vital life-saving information, it is important to have safeguards.  Likewise, if losing your data may mean loss of the business, you can bet there is a good backup procedure intact.  In fact for large organizations there is usually some type of plan for catastrophic occurrences.  Often several large businesses will form a consortium.  Then in case of a catastrophe, the organization that was out of the (hurricane, earthquake, flood area), can share computing time with the distressed companies.  This consortium will also sometimes set up a fully equipped site (away from their businesses) to take care of dire emergencies.  Each company will have a plan in place to get their business up and running at the new site.  An employee will know if they are one of the skeleton crew that must reach that site in case of emergencies.  

For the majority of us, I would venture to say, that it is not necessary to make a full backup.  In the first place, if you don’t have some other type of backup device other than your floppy drive, it takes TOO MANY FLOPPIES to make a full backup, and takes forever as it asks for the next disk and the next disk.  Besides, we don’t need a full backup, because we have all those expensive software programs on CDs or distribution disks tucked away safely somewhere.  That means if our system fails and we need to install a new hard drive, we have all the software to reinstall.  All we need to backup is our data files.  

That brings up another notion.  There is a system backup utility program that will back up your files or folders of files to a disk or several disks.  However, backups are made in the hopes that they will never have to be used.  You only use them to restore files to your hard disk after you have either reformatted it or replaced it with a new one.  BUT you can’t use those files on your disk.  When you use the backup command, it takes those 68 files you were backing up and lumps them into one file on your disk called Backup 001 or Control 001, which you can’t access except to restore.  You can ONLY use those files after they are restored.  What about that report you have to turn in tomorrow?  Maybe you won’t have your new hard drive installed by then.  What I am trying to say is that for your purposes it would probably work better just to use the old copy command or “send to A:” command to backup to a floppy.  Just click and drag those files over to your floppy, or select a bunch and copy/paste.  Or develop a routine when you are preparing a document in any application software; just save to your hard drive and a floppy—then you always have a backup.  With your file on a floppy, you can always carry your disk to the college lab, or use a friend or relative’s computer.  

Another problem we need to be aware of to protect our computers and data files is the power.  We have what is known as “dirty power” with little power surges from time to time.  You need a surge protector to insure that your computer doesn’t get damaged.  A surge protector will even go as far as to protect your computer during electrical storms, unless you get a direct hit close by.  (Then bye, bye computer).  A surge protector is not too expensive, but I wouldn’t buy the cheapest.  I have several student stories (that I won’t repeat here) about how the surge protector saved their computer but the rest of the appliances died.  And also one where the surge protector DID NOT protect the computer from a direct hit to a power line.  

It probably isn’t necessary for most of us, but you can also have a UPS (more expensive).  An Uninterruptible Power Supply protects you from power outages, and will keep your computer up and running until you can turn if off properly.  When the power goes, the computer just keeps right on running because the UPS is battery powered.  It will beep every minute to let you know that the power is gone and that you need to do something about it if the power doesn’t come back on before you time limit (varies) is up.  

We also need to be alert to those notorious computer viruses.  A virus is computer program code, which has the ability to attach itself to other programs and then cause those programs to also become a virus carrier.  Viruses vary in the degree of harm or damage they can cause.  Some of the originals were just sort of funny, but viruses have tended to become more potent and destructive over the years.  There are new viruses every day.  Your protection against this is not sharing your computer with other people and their disks, which can carry a virus from computer to computer.  You also need the protection of an anti-virus program.  We are so aware of viruses now, that most of us have a virus scanner installed on our computer that scans all of our files every time we boot our computer.  In fact Windows comes with some virus protection files.  It is wise, however, use something more powerful like McAfee or Norton Virus Protection.  Remember new viruses come out every day.  This means you must update your anti-virus program regularly.  Usually you will get a message if it is time to update.  Your anti-virus protection may be great for today, but it doesn’t protect you from tomorrow’s virus.  

You also want to protect your computer from vandals, not only the ones who access your computers without authority, but thieves who will carry the whole computer away.  First, lock your doors!  If someone wants in bad enough, they can get in, but some thieves are looking for easy access.  There are also keys that lock your computer so other people can’t turn them on.  Not terribly effective unless you are just preventing use by the other people in your office.  You can also have a screen saver password so that the inquisitive office colleague can’t gain confidential information from your computer while you are away from your desk.  

Actual passwords for gaining access to a computer or to areas in the computer are taken more seriously.  Some companies change passwords every month.  It is difficult to remember passwords when you have too many of them or have to change them often.  It is a definite problem if you can’t get into an area because you can’t remember your password; and when you haven’t used it for a while, it’s easy to forget.  Still, you should avoid writing them down on that little pad in your drawer!  

Some of the things you should never use for passwords are your name or the name of someone close to you—spouse, child, or even your pets.  Passwords should be more than 5 characters long--more difficult to automatically search for all the three to four letter combinations.  (When accessing some Internet areas that require a password, they specify at least eight characters).  In short passwords, use a combination of both upper and lower case letters and at least one number (q4hiGh).  An even better way is to combine two completely unrelated words.  Better still is connecting those two words with a number or a symbol—almost foolproof for anyone to break your password (cherry7road).