Jacadis works with businesses worried about the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of their key information.
If I am working in a business with information I want to make it available to only those that have a need and a right to it (confidentiality), I want it to be accurate (integrity) and I want it to be able to work with it when I need to get my work done (availability).
A college student is no different.
Your son or daughter probably, today, cares less about confidentiality than integrity and availability. "Kids" these days share so much more online than our generation feels comfortable with, but they have the good sense to know that they want the information on their computer to be accurate and available when they want it. A parent reads that last sentence and thinks term paper; our children read it and think music playlists and media files.
The principles are the same.
We need to send our children back to college with the personal and technical tools to do the following:
- Keep their identities safe.
- Keep their key information intact and accurate
- Keep their system and their information available to use when they need .... or want it
We recommend the following:
1. Understand what help the school will or will not offer. Many schools have laptop programs and provide help desk support to students who have issues with their equipment. Others don't. Some charge, others don't. When you are done spending time finding the dining hall invest the time to find the technical services department and understand what services they do and don't provide.
2. Make sure that you discuss with your son or daughter the need to password protect computers, laptops and smart phones.
3. Some means of backing the information on the computer up. Essentially, you want them to have the ability to copy the contents of their system to another device in case the computer is lost, stolen or broken. That might mean blank CDs (going to be a very slow process though), blank DVDs, large USB key (memory stick in excess of 4GB), an external USB Hard Drive or an online service such as Carbonite.
(And a special note from our newest addition to the Jacadis family, one of our analysts graduated from school two years ago. He says “Tell them not to store the only copy of a term paper on a USB key!”. I imagine he has a story to share!)
4. A laptop security cable which will allow them to fasten the computer to something large and harder to move like a desk or a bed or a lab table. In nearly every way this device functions like a bike lock. This is a must, particularly in a dorm setting because so many people will have access to your student’s dorm room.
5. An Ethernet network cable in case you are in an area that doesn’t have wireless. My college age friends tell me that the cable should be at least 25 feet or more.
6. A unique identifier on the laptop case and the laptop itself. We tell some of our clients who travel internationally to put a readily seen sticker on their computers and computer bags. Think lime green or blaze orange. In a sea of black laptops and black laptop bags it isn't bullet proof but it helps you keep your eyes on your stuff. The same principal applies when taking that laptop to college.
7. Make sure you give them at least a few minutes lecture about no using illegal file sharing sites. First, many of them contain malware or other virus like software. Second, it is a great way to get kicked off the University or otherwise find you in the school’s disciplinary process.
8. And finally, as we always discuss when we talk about living securely in a digital world, make sure the computer your son or daughter goes to school with has:
- Properly licensed software and an owner that knows how to follow manufacturer’s recommendations in keeping it patched and up to date.
- Anti-Virus and anti-spyware protection
- A two-way firewall
- An owner that knows to keep it password protected
