Perfigo to the rescue

Last year students were inconvenienced with computer viruses that plagued the campus network. This year, steps have been taken to reduce the amount of viruses to keep computers safe.

“What we have done is we bought this system called Perfigo,”said Jim Baker, Help Desk Coordinator. “The purpose of that system is to ensure that the computers brought on to the network are up to date in their operating system patches and have the current definitions of Norton Antivirus.”

The tool within this new system is called SmartEnforcer. It requires that students’ computers are virus-free and have protection against viruses before they are allowed to log onto the network. This will ensure that all the computers are safe and will decrease the amount of infections circling the school network.

This action was taken because students did not always have virus protection.

If they did have it, they did not always keep their definitions updated. This made it easier for viruses to spread on the network and infect other computers that did not have virus protection.

“In Microsoft there are security flaws and vulnerabilities,” said Terri Critser, PC technician. “And people that write viruses will find that out and use that to exploit your personal computer to spread viruses and steal personal information.

Microsoft will release an update, and patches that clog these holes. They will release an update and Perfigo will make sure you get those new updates and install them before allowing you on the network.” Although this system is beneficial for the computer network, there have been problems downloading the system. Some have had difficulties getting to the link and downloading the patches. Others have not had enough computer experience to understand what they are doing.

“I had problems getting to the link,“ said junior Alyssa Kozak. “Once I got to it said it, it would take me 12 hours to download. I had to try several times for it to finally download and work. But I have not had any problems with it since then.”

This problem occurred with many students, and it was due to glitches in the network.

“We had network issues,” said Baker. “ This is our first time using this system, and we had some network problems. Also a lot of the folks are not persistent. They’ll try it once get their downloads then go back, and what looks to be the same screen is not the same screen at all but a different form. People need to be persistent.”

Throughout the rest of the year, students will need to keep their definitions updated. When students log onto SmartEnforcer, the system will let them know if there is a new definition they need to download. If they fail to download it, they will not be allowed on the network.

“I think it is a good thing,” said junior Tara Arthur. “Sometimes it’s frustrating, but in the end it’s a really good thing for this campus.”

The computer service department is happy to have this new system despite some of the problems that have occurred. They hope by having this they will be able to keep a dependable network for the students.

“Last year we were extremely reliable,” said Baker. “I expect that we will probably be more reliable this year, since we have up-to-date computers on the network instead of a bunch of virus-risk computers.”

If students are having problems with this program, students are asked to contact an RA for assistance. If they can’t help, call the Help Desk at Ext. 3111.