FAQ for Teachers
Listed below are some guidelines on proper use of computer / Internet that your students should follow:
Here are some ethics that students should follow for your reference:
You should first strengthen the security protection of your PC to keep the information inside safe. Here are some hints :
You are recommended to develop IT security guidelines or policies for the students to follow. The rules are documented so that they know what are the things they should or should not do.
You may find a sample of IT security policy in schools at the following location:
The Internet contains a huge variety of useful information and resources. You should encourage your students to do research on the Internet. Nevertheless, they should be aware of the importance of intellectual property rights. They should notice that it is illegal to download and save files from the Internet without the acknowledgement from the owner. They should not copy the material they found from the Internet directly to their assignment, including article, photo, image and programming code.
You may refer to the following location for copyright related ordinance.
Same as other files, you should teach your students not to download MP3 and movie from the unauthorised source or without getting permission from the owner, though it is quite easy to do so.
Moreover, they should not publish or distribute music or movie that do not belong to them or are not authorised to do so. It is considered as breaking the law.
There are some faked websites that pretend to be popular shops, trying to get your credit card or other personal information. Moreover, there are some 'spoofed' emails which are sent in bulk with deceiving or fraudulent message. Some may even invite recipient to click the embedded links to some fraudulent websites, and deceive them to enter personal banking information such as accounts, passwords and credit card information.
Here are some tips for your students to follow:
You may find more information at the following locations:
Following are some examples of badly chosen passwords that can be easily guessed or cracked using password crackers freely available on the Internet. Teach your students not to use any of them.
| "password" | ~ | he most easily guessed password. |
| "peterchan" | ~ | logon name or name of a person. |
| "" | ~ | no password. |
| "aaaaa" | ~ | repeating characters. |
| "abcdefg" | ~ | consecutive letters. |
| "12345" | ~ | consecutive numbers. |
| "qwert" | ~ | adjacent keys on keyboard. |
| "apple" | ~ | dictionary words. |
| "19951231" | ~ | information easily obtained from you e.g. phone numbers, birth dates, your favourite things, name of street you live on. |
| "apple12" | ~ | simple variation of anything mentioned above, e.g. appending or prepending digits or symbols, or substituting characters, like 3 for E, $ for S. |
Things to note when choosing or handling passwords:
The first thing to do is PREVENTION. You should make sure all the computers in your school are installed with anti-malware software and updated with the latest malware definition file. Note that: without updating with the latest malware definition file, the computer is not protected against the new malwares. Thus, malware signature should be updated regularly, say about once a week. You may also use a server to automatically apply the updated signature to all the machines.
Meanwhile, you should also teach your students to always scan floppy disk, CD and files downloaded from Internet before using them. Moreover, you and your students should backup programs and data regularly. This is the most secure way to restore the files after a malware attack.
If malware is found, don't be panic! Stop all the activities of the infected machine and disconnect it from the school network to prevent the malware from further spreading. Clean the malware using anti-malware tools or follow the instructions from anti-malware vendors. When the malware is removed, you can then restore the data from clean backup. You may also report the case to the Police when necessary.
Click here for more information related to malware, such as the latest malwares, types of malware, the ways to handle it and some tips on protecting computers from malware attack.
Yes, you should always keep the operating system and software of the computers up-to-date with the latest security updates and patches, especially for those connected to the Internet.
Very often, an intruder will make use of the vulnerabilities found in operating system and software to launch attack. Software company will release updates or patches to fix the holes. However, if the machines are not installed with the updates, it will give a chance for the intruder to launch attack.
An intruder can make use of one machine as a stepping stone to launch further attack to other connected networks easily. If one machine that linked up with the school network is under attack, it may expose the whole network and computer systems to serious security risk.
Though it may take you some time for the update, your effort, time, and money spent should definitely be far more than this if your school network and systems are under attack and all the data are damaged.
If your school network is connected to the Internet, you should install a firewall to protect the network. An intruder can easily attack your school network by making use of the security vulnerabilities found in the software. Firewall can filter the unauthorised data traffic and prevent the intruders from accessing the important resource inside your network. However, you should make sure that the firewall is configured properly with appropriate access control, so that there is no false sense of security.
