By Ed Avella
Campus Director & Dean of IT Programs
I love my Grandmother. She tells amazing stories about my family, where we came from, is a fantastic cook and really a lot of fun. She is also highly political and pre-empts anyone using the television on Sunday mornings at ten a.m. for her talk shows. She places a high value on having up to the minute knowledge of what is happening in this country’s political system. She is also somewhat reliant on email and the Internet to keep her informed on the latest developments in both our family and the outside world. Email and Internet access that seems to fail her week after week. My Grandmother works hard to stay “in the know.” She also seems to have constant computer trouble.
I cannot get her to understand that clicking on the “yes” in the dialogue box from opening email attachments is the reason for the constant computer troubles! She just keeps clicking to save and/or open emails and their attached files and has no idea where they are coming from!
I have been fortunate this summer to get to spend quite a few weekends with the ‘rents’ (as I refer to them) and each time I find that she has once again downloaded spyware, malware or some other malicious program that plays havoc on her computer. As a result, when I visit I can do nothing else before fixing her computer so she stays up on her emails. The same emails that damage her system in the first place. Sigh.
The dilemma I face with my Grandmother may be a recurring theme at work for some of us as well. Employees may not understand how to recognize malicious attachments. Sometimes, the bad stuff our employees are downloading does come from trusted addresses that might have been compromised!
So my question is, do you or does your organization engage in any type of user training to educate employees to recognize bogus attachments or potentially harmful files and avoid opening them?
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