This has been a week of patience. Last week while traveling, I received a call from one of our offices that they had some "strange things" happening on one of the computers. I suggested a few things to correct the problem but the attempts were unsuccessful.
On Monday of this week when I was at that office, I took it upon myself to try and correct the problem. It was a type of spyware called Ultimate Defender. My McAfee anti-virus software wouldn't touch it so I bought a copy of Norton's System Works to attempt removal. It wouldn't clean it either. I spent part of 3 days trying various things to remove the problem. It would generate pop-ups anytime you did anything on the computer. It was extremely frustrating.
I went in and started manually cleaning everything that I could find. I just couldn't find the file that was re-generating the issue. I finally called Norton and spent $100 to get their help. After about 1 1/2 hours on the phone with a guy in India who had to take control of the computer over the Internet and manually remove the problem it was fixed.
Apparently one of my employees had been visiting some sites that he shouldn't have. I asked the Norton Technician what caused the problem and he said that most commonly this type of virus comes from porn sites or from MySpace/MyWay sites. This particular one came in on a video file. The file was innocent appearing but contained something worse than AIDS.
I called a meeting of my employees and told them plainly that if I ever found one of them visiting a porn site or MySpace/MyWay on a company computer again it would be grounds for immediate dismissal. I knew from the nervous reaction throughout my 2 1/2 days of working on the problem who the guilty party was. He's young and didn't realize the risk. I believe that he got the message.
Sometimes mercy is the best response. If done correctly it can often change behavior. I am thankful that God has mercy on me. I don't deserve it, but His mercy is my only hope of redemption.
1 comment:
our school has a set up where the emails and offending programs are trapped on broad band before they get in and are confiscated .Of course we ARE INSTRUCTED NOT TO GO ANYWHERE EXCEPT THE SCHOOL SITE IN THE FIRST PLACE. THEY ALSO MONITOR TIME ON THE COMPUTER AS THAT TAKES AWAY FROM TEACHING. iT SEEMS SOMEBODY WAS EBAYING some years back during class time., I can't imagine as I have no time to breathe while at school (sigh)I could wri8te 20 pages about my disgust for myspace..
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