Pop-up Help...

[Cope57]

Even though pop-ups are annoying you could still test out your pop-up blocker at PopupTest.com to see how well it does against those pop-ups that are flooding you...

[alittlebitnumb]

Never download any programs you do not trust. if it is adware, shareware or freeware, make sure what is bundled. That'll save a lot of troubles. Good luck.

[Jason1977]

Originally posted here by AngelicKnight
They landed you a position as Network Security Coordinator over 500 people without training you in this first? Dang, and I thought I had it rough! Well, you've come to the right place to learn.

I'd suggest trying out the software yourself. Probably disregard Firefox and other browsers since you don't want the hassle of walking every single user you talk to through it, so you want to focus on Internet Explorer security tools. That said, check out the suggested software, and if you think that's what you need, then that's what you suggest to your users when they call with these problems.

thats right...My background is in PC support and to be honest i havent done that in years...I worked for an ISP as tech support for the last 2 years.


wont the browser security possibly cause ofther issues..IE..not allowing programs/login pop ups they need to run.

[AngelicKnight]

I'm a fresh MIS major, and I got thrown into net admin during my last semester in an internship with no security training or real hands-on network experience, and it was friggin' scary for a while. So I can definately relate, especially in regards to the dozens of people who will respond "You didn't know that?!" when you ask them questions!

Tightening security may indeed cause some of those problems. I don't use IE anymore, but on the rare occasions I do for a considerable period of time, I have EMS FreeSurfer running, and it's worked wonders. The only downside I've found is that sometimes it protects your homepage a little TOO well (I never could change the homepage myself!). Few popups/hijacks will get past FreeSurfer, and it's very easy to use.

[Jason1977]

Its been tough. I have so many questions! the pay was ok and I needed a job!

[Soda_Popinsky]

wont the browser security possibly cause ofther issues..IE..not allowing programs/login pop ups they need to run.

Yes, it can cause problems if you need it for certain web applications. Take !imitation's advice with the scripting, combine that with the trusted zone option. Set only the pages a employee needs to see on the companies website that require scripts. There's gotta be a way to export that and run around with a disk to update, but maybe your admin software will permit that as well.

Scan from a centralized location
http://lavasoft.element5.com/softwar...eprofessional/

Set all your boxes to update automatically and often. If someone complains that they can't run kazaa, then just tell them to shut the hell up . Do you currently have an antivirus solution in place?

[AngelicKnight]

Well, from one thrown-to-the-wolves n00b to another, here's part of what I did to get set on the right track as a know-nothing admin:

1) Learn everything you can about firewalls, hardware and software, especially log monitoring.
2) Know everything you can about your LAN, it's domain, IP addresses in it, user groups and permissions, what each server does, etc.
3) Find and keep handy a number of quick-reference learning resources handy, such as AO here. Others I use are www.experts-exchange.com and www.tek-tips.com.
4) Become intimately familiar with your antivirus software and watch logs often.
5) Become well familarized with the event viewer in each machine, and reference EventID.Net when something fishy pops up.
6) Google the crap out of everything.
7) Ignore people who say your questions are dumb.

Just read, read, research, research, and experiment with stuff (within the confines of safety of course). I'm a lot better off now and continuing to gain ground going this route.

[dinowuff]

Jason:

If you have the budget, I would recommend purchasing some type of web monitoring control.

I reviewed surfcontrol, websense and a few apps from CA. In the end I bought websense and their desktop control plug-in. I had many of the same issues ranging from users typing the wrong url to - excuse my attitude - stupidity.

With web monitoring/blocking software the popup sites are usually blocked by default and the end user (with websense) doesn't see the window. The software not only helps defend against m intent but does a good job preventing stupidity at the user level.

The desktop control software is nothing more than a service that checks to see if an application is allowed to run. Haven't noticed significant network traffic, and since the users know I'm monitoring - available bandwidth has almost doubled.

Since I installed 6 months ago I haven't had to change a single homepage or remove spyware. There are other security measures augmenting the web monitoring software but without websense (or any of the other products) the additional security measures would not have been as effective.

[Jason1977]

I have websense....maybe its just not configured to stop this activity? i havent taken that over yet. only been here 3 months.