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When to stop using your computer!

By Dan Hadaway | Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - Leave a Comment

Note: The following is a “Vigilize Post.” If you want regular fodder for your security awareness reminders, along with catchy subject lines if you intend to use e-mail, consider following us on www.twitter.com/vigilize! Each week we tweet a post that you are welcome to customize to your own situation. The tweet itself is designed to be an e-mail subject line that will entice your users to at least open the message. This is in reaction to a very common complaint from our ISO clients: “They don’t even open my awareness reminder e-mails.”


If you see error messages from your anti-virus system or you otherwise suspect that you have a virus infection or spyware on your workstation, immediately stop what you are doing and contact your Network Administrator. The infected computer must also be immediately isolated from internal networks, so if you can locate where the network cable plugs into your workstation, you can unplug it while waiting for the Network Administrator. Otherwise, do nothing more with your computer until the Network Administrator has had a chance to investigate.

This is not a time when you would just e-mail your network administrator and then continue using the computer.  Viruses, trojans, and spyware are serious business.  We want to be sure the controls in place to protect you from malware are in place and working properly.  Anti-Virus Systems (AVS) work really good now but they can be broken.  Thus, an error message from your anti-virus application takes top priority.

Do not attempt to eradicate viruses yourself.  Your Network Administrator will complete this complex task in a manner that minimizes both data destruction and system downtime, while ensuring the source of infection is determined to prevent further damage.

Click here for more information about User Awareness Training!


Intended Use:

The purpose of Vigilize is to respond to ISOs’ complaints that users never read ISO’s “ongoing security awareness training reminders.”  Our tweets are designed to be copied into the subject line of your awareness reminder, with the language on these pages put into the body.  The goal is that the user will have to read the subject line to know to delete the message, and if they understand the subject line the reminder is communicated.  If not, they will go into the message and read the reminder.

Feel free to use Vigilize in your own Security Awareness Program.  Let us know if you have any ideas, suggested tweets, or ways to improve this FREE service.

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