Anti-virus vendor produces guidelines for safe computing in the
classroom
Sophos, a world leader in anti-virus protection, has today
released a series of information packs outlining how schools can
protect themselves against virus attack. The first set of
guidelines, produced for use by teachers, includes advice on safe
computing procedures, describes the different types of virus threat
and offers suggestions for classroom activities. Sophos has also
produced two sets of guidelines for pupils - one for primary and
one for secondary students. All these resources can be downloaded
free of charge from the company's website.
Sophos has issued these guidelines as a resource to complement
the National Curriculum. Although information and communications
technology is now taught in every UK school, little provision has
been made for the teaching of safe and ethical computing. Sophos
hopes these guidelines will inform teachers and pupils not only of
how to defend against viruses, but also of the dangers of writing
and distributing them.
"Many teachers and pupils have a limited knowledge of computer
viruses and are unsure of how to protect themselves against
attack," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant, Sophos
Anti-Virus. "With films glamourising cybercrime and some virus
writers achieving 'fame' through their actions, these guidelines
not only summarise how to prevent infections, they also cover the
consequences of deliberately spreading malicious code - making it
clear that virus writing really isn't cool."
Sophos has issued these information packs as part of a
long-standing commitment to helping schools protect themselves
against viruses. The company's software is deployed by all Northern
Irish secondary schools and 50% of schools in England and Wales.
Sophos also offers heavily discounted software licences to all UK
educational institutions.
Read Sophos's pupil and teacher guidelines.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.