Why scrub?
March 23, 2009Written by George Mulford
CHEP policy, simply stated, is that every administrative computer, including those used by faculty, should be reformatted before being turned over to the next user. The purpose is not only to make sure no sensitive records are being retained without the next user’s knowledge, but also to make sure no malicious software survives the transfer. A side benefit not to be lightly dismissed is that the computer will be faster after a reformat and the operating system and all the standard applications will be up to date, and so more secure.
The wisdom of this approach has been born out by two recent malware cases (yes, in CHEP!) that could have been prevented by timely reformatting. The damage unwanted programs can do by compromising sensitive information, launching attacks on other computers, overwhelming network resources, and of course making the infected computer nearly unusable, is hard to overestimate.
Some of our clients nevertheless fail to report that a computer is changing hands; some report it but ask us to skip the routine reformat, either to save time, or because there’s something on the hard drive they think they might need, or because there are applications on the computer they aren’t sure how to replace. None of these is an adequate reason to forgo a precaution as sensible as keeping school kids from sharing hats. You really don’t want to live through a cootie outbreak!
Write oet-help and we promise we will work with you to minimize the impact of this necessary intervention. Please, please, don’t let a computer go uninspected through two or three years of revolving-door users. It’s those computers that are generally the scariest to examine closely. Call them in! We’ll clean them up.
