Windows Security and On-line Training Courses?

eggegick writes "My wife has taken a number of college courses over the last three years and many of the classes used on-line materials rather than books. The problem was these required IE along with Java, Active X and/or various plug-ins (the names of which escapes me), and occasionally I'd have to tweak our firewall to allow these apps to run. I don't think any of these training apps would work with Firefox. All of this made me cringe from a security point of view. Myself, I use Firefox, No-Script, our external firewall and common sense when using the web. I have a very old Windows 2000 machine that I keep up to date. To my knowledge, I've never had a virus or malware problem. Her computer is a relatively new XP machine, and at this point she feels her computer has something wrong. But now she prefers to use my old machine instead of hers since it seems to be more responsive. We plan to run the recovery disk on hers. Assuming the college course work applications were part of the cause, what recommendations do any of you have for running this kind of software? Is there a VMware solution that would work — that is, have a Windows image that is used temporarily for the course work and then discarded at the end of the semester (and how do you create such an image, and what does it cost?)."

Comments

vmware is free

[DragonTHC]

vmware is free, so is virtualbox and xen.

you would create the image yourself.

install a default XP machine and run IE on it.

Re:vmware is free

[QuantumRiff]

VMWare is free, however, you would have to check your licensing to ensure you can install a second copy of windows on it, without having to buy another license. (unless, of course, you put linux on the machine, and run windows inside vmware)

I think virtual machines are going to be the death of Microsoft. Its just too damn hard to keep track of in a VMAppliance world...

Virtualization is your friend

[pwizard2]

I review software for a living (in addition to doing other things) so I've been using virtualized Windows XP installations for awhile now. (I prefer Virtualbox, but you can do this with any utility)

A long time ago, I created a virtual hard disk image of a Windows XP installation, got it the way I like it, and then backed it up. (storing a few GB long-term is trivial these days) When the current disk image I'm using gets overly cluttered after a few weeks or months, I just get rid of it and load a fresh copy from my backup and start over.

You could probably benefit from the same system.

Why would it make you cringe?

[magamiako1]

all of this made me cringe from a security point of view.

Why would this make you cringe from a security standpoint? Security is only a problem with nefarious things are intended. The act of allowing these specific ActiveX controls to run within the context of the training courses has no bearing on whether or not you are permitting other ActiveX controls to run. If the prompts annoy you, rather than simply completely turning off ActiveX security features, you should add this site to your list of Trusted Sites.

There's nothing inherently wrong with enabling IE, using IE, or using ActiveX. And within the context of this single site there's not likely to be a problem. After all, if they were using their software for malicious deeds you surely have legal rights on your side.

Re:Why would it make you cringe?

[magamiako1]

Completely terrible analogy to make.

And yes, you can enable scripting per site. Or rather, on IE you have "zones". And you can set different security levels for each zone. You have your "Internet" Zone, "Trusted Sites", and even "Restricted Sites".

You can add sites and change security settings for each one of these. Trusted sites typically have less security requirements because you trust them. And that would be the proper solution to this question.

Windows SteadyState

[benjymouse]

is also an option. Can completely lock down a PC. All changes are written to a separate "log" partition which can be reverted. Logs can be kept separate for individual users and the system. For instance you can configure Windows SteadyState to discard all user changes at each boot but allows the system to update itself through Windows Update

It's available for XP and Vista (32 bit) free from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx

Internet College web sites and virtual machines

[Orion Blastar]

require you to turn off your firewall and pop-up blocker. Why they cannot write web software to work without needing pop-ups and can work with firewalls is beyond me.

Virtual PC 2007 is free. Use Pricewatch's operating system price search to find a version of Windows to run under it. Windows XP can be bought in OEM version for under $100.

Run all college web sites in a virtual machine.

Use Avast Home for Antivirus as it is free for home and non-profit use.