I'm removing spyware from a user's PC

[nick1985]

Unrestricted internet for hundreds of employees who have nothing to do is an IT guys worst nightmare.

 

[HannibalX]

Lock that shit down. Blue Coat is your friend.

 

[meltdown75]

nuke it from orbit

 

[nick1985]

I have tried to. They wont let me. Its seriously out of hand too. Everyone is on facebook/myspace and cruising the web getting spyware and viruses like crazy. Its pretty much all I do here anymore. I guess its job security.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

I have tried to. They wont let me. Its seriously out of hand too. Everyone is on facebook/myspace and cruising the web getting spyware and viruses like crazy. Its pretty much all I do here anymore. I guess its job security.

Please tell us where you work so we can avoid doing business with this company. It's only a matter of time before confidential information is stolen or leaked...

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Please tell us where you work so we can avoid doing business with this company. It's only a matter of time before confidential information is stolen or leaked...

I know, geez.

We locked our shit down. If people complain I refer them to the policy manual -- which says that only admins have less restrictive access to the net.

 

[I Saw OJ]

Why not just start over with a clean install?

 

[SpatiallyAware]

It's really really tough for an existing IT group to reclaim control over a network like this from a company culture standpoint.

It usually takes a monumental disaster before they bring someone in and 'let them' enforce proper network policies.

 

[OutHouse]

It's really really tough for an existing IT group to reclaim control over a network like this from a company culture standpoint.

It usually takes a monumental disaster before they bring someone in and 'let them' enforce proper network policies.

yup

 

[Pantlegz]

I have the same issue at work it sucks, I spend 80%+ of my time just removing viruses/spyware or trying to figure out why these machines run so slow... It sucks, but as long as they keep it up I've got a job and a good excuse for not getting other stuff done.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Unrestricted internet for hundreds of employees who have nothing to do is an IT guys job security.

Fixed that for you.

 

[DougK62]

You need something like DeepFreeze or similar that will let you "freeze" the state of a machine. It'll work just like normal, but if you get big problems just reboot and it goes back to its "frozen" state.

 

[shiner]

Lock that shit down. Blue Coat Palo Alto is your friend.

We recently tossed our Bluecoats in the dumpster.

 

[WT]

Ohh, you can appreciate this quip I get from them time and time again:

"But I could install it on my home computer ????" "Why can't I install it here ??"

Its a virus ... Win-Antivirus 2010 >>IS<< the VIRUS ! You are infecting YOUR PC !

 

[nick1985]

Please tell us where you work so we can avoid doing business with this company. It's only a matter of time before confidential information is stolen or leaked...

Government.

 

[punjabiplaya]

No one is going to change how they use the internet at work until something crazy happens like confidential information leak. Unfortunately, you will get blamed for not doing your job. It sucks.

 

[nboy22]

Lock that shit down. Blue Coat is your friend.

Or Deep Freeze

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Government.

Oh goddamn. Getting government workers to change their currently allowed behaviors, regardless of the reason, is damn near impossible without a government-issued mandate. They're like a bunch of spoiled children.

 

[nick1985]

No one is going to change how they use the internet at work until something crazy happens like confidential information leak. Unfortunately, you will get blamed for not doing your job. It sucks.

Yep. Our local school system was hacked and had hundreds of thousands stolen from it because of shit like this. I was hoping that when that happened we would change our ways of unrestricted internet.

Nope.

 

[nick1985]

Oh goddamn. Getting government workers to change their currently allowed behaviors, regardless of the reason, is damn near impossible without a government-issued mandate. They're like a bunch of spoiled children.

Shoulda seem the complex when we took away their games. (Solitare, minesweeper, etc). I thought they were going to riot.

I was against this move however. I said let them have their games, it keeps them off the internet. Now they just play more than ever online

 

[HannibalX]

It's really really tough for an existing IT group to reclaim control over a network like this from a company culture standpoint.

It usually takes a monumental disaster before they bring someone in and 'let them' enforce proper network policies.

It depends on the management. I worked in an IT group that basically had no power over anything. It got to the point where we put together a report for the executives which basically was an ultimatum. It stated they could spend roughly $2 million dollars implementing some much needed network security OR when an event happens (and they will) they can spend upwards of $100 million trying to do damage control. All our numbers were based on reports published by other companies who had data breaches. Thankfully the execs were smart enough to get on board.

 

[trmiv]

I just finished removing two infections this morning myself. Malwarebytes found 789 items on the last one I did. LOL. Luckily it was actually pretty toothless and easy to remove. It did disable McAfee though (not that McAfee does anything).

We will never lock stuff down here. I work for a company that does research in a ton of different fields. We actually have people that need to legitimately access "questionable" sites for research (I'm not kidding). Although there are other solutions that would allow them to do what they need to do, and still lock down the rest of the people, I doubt it happens. The funny thing is, those people are never the ones who get the infections.

 

[HannibalX]

It did disable McAfee though (not that McAfee does anything).

Oh really?

 

[Jeff7]

We've got unrestricted Internet access where I work, as far as I know.
Most people are on user-level accounts though, without the ability to install fun new things.


Most people.()

 

[AnonymouseUser]

It did disable McAfee though (not that McAfee does anything).

That's quite funny. So, since McAfee doesn't do anything, why disable it?