Ask Slashdot: How To Communicate Security Alerts?

Capt.Michaels writes: "I need to start sending security alerts and warnings to employees at my somewhat sizable company. My problem: I'm not sure how to send these alerts without freaking everyone out and causing the help desk to get flooded with phone calls. For example, let's take the current Internet Explorer exploit that caused US-CERT to recommend switching browsers. I don't want everyone killing our limited help desk with ridiculous questions like, 'I downloaded $New_Browser, how can I get my toolbar? How do I bookmark things in this browser? Can you tell me which browser you recommend?' Simply put: some vulnerabilities are worth major changes, but many aren't. If we switched software every time a new vulnerability came out, we'd never get anything done. Sooner or later, a patch will come out, and everything will be back to normal. But how do I communicate to end users that they should be aware of an issue and take extra care until it's fixed, without causing panic?"

Comments

Re:Misleading Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

The line you quoted says "including Windows XP," you god damn idiot. You either use WSUS or update.microsoft.com. You have to type the second one in the address bar of your web browser and press the Enter key. That's the one labeled "Enter". You may need to get help from an IT professional, because it may require installation of an ActiveX control to work.