ICT Service

PCs with internet access are at risk of being infected with viruses or
being targeted by hackers. With a few simple measures, you can
decrease the risk significantly. On this page, you can read more about
what measures you should take.

1. Install anti-virus software and keep it up-to-date. 

Anti-virus software can scan files and e-mail attachments for viruses
and clean them if any are found. There are two things that are
important when using anti-virus software: The software must be
up-to-date, and the settings must be correct. The TU/e uses McAfee
VirusScan. Most TU/e PCs will have an up-to-date version of this, with
the correct settings, installed at roll-out time.

If you want to check whether you have the correct version of McAfee
VirusScan, or if it is not yet installed on your computer and you want
to install it yourself, please check the relevant installationpage for information.

Usually, setting up your anti-virus software correctly needs to be
done only once. With the AutoUpdate functionality, you can make sure
that the software's data files remain up-to-date. For information
about how to use this functionality in McAfee AntiVirus versie 4.5.1 versies 7  and 8, see the page mentioned above. 

2. Make sure Windows and Office are up-to-date

Microsoft regularly releases updates that patch security leaks in
Windows and Office. In order to keep your installations of Windows and
Office up-to-date, you can use Microsoft Update via the internet. This service can ensure that essential updates for
Windows and Office are installed automatically. In order to use this,
you need to enable both Microsoft Update and Automatic Updates.

3. Use of e-mail

Malicious files can be spread throughout an organization very quickly
via e-mail. You can prevent a lot of frustration by sticking to the
following rules:

• Never open attachments from senders you don't know. The safest
  option is to remove suspicious or pushy e-mail from your mailbox
  immediately.
• Also be careful with attachments sent by people you do know.
  Mailboxes can be used to distribute dangerous attachments without
  the mailbox owner being aware of it. Most of the time, you can
  recognize such mail by strange use of language or, for example,
  topics that do not relate to your work. You should also be careful
  when receiving e-mail in another language than the language you
  usually use to correspond with the sender.

These are the most important measures you should take. Every TU/e
employee is expected to make sure these three measures are taken at
their TU/e workplace.

Finally, a few words about Personal Firewall-software. For a computer
with internet access at home, it is important that you install a
Personal Firewall. However, you should not install such software on
your TU/e workplace computer.

For those who want to take additional measures to secure their
computer, or who are interested in the subject matter, please see this additional page.