Throwback: So Easy Even a Child Can Do It (Premium)

In June 2010, I wrote this editorial about keeping kids safe online. A lot has changed since then, but it’s still an interesting read.

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Two recent events involving my children may hold some relevance for those of you who toil protecting users and corporate data from the dangers of the outside world. Not that I'm suggesting that your users are children per se. But mine are.

Like many of you, I treat my home environment like a miniature version of the larger, more managed environments we typically see at work. I have a domain and a Windows 7 workgroup, portable and desktop computers, mobile devices, connected entertainment devices, printers, and users, in this case my wife and kids. I'm the overlord of this environment, and I like to set things up to require a minimum of hands-on attention.

I have two stories to tell. One speaks to the positive effects of empowering and trusting users. The other, to the dangers of the consumerization of IT and of putting too much trust in common sense. Is there a single lesson to be learned here? Perhaps. But if you can learn from my mistakes at the very least, please do so.

On a more positive note, I've always felt that securing Windows was a far simpler task than many make it to be. I've argued for years, literally, that Microsoft should simply include anti-virus/anti-malware in Windows, closing off the only major functional security hole in the product. Instead, Microsoft has evolved its basic security offering, now called Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE), into a free product for individuals. And it has created a number of useful (but not free) security products for businesses of various sizes. The latest of these, Windows Intune, is a managed cloud service that is currently in beta and due for final release in early 2011. I'm using it to manage many of the PCs in my home environment right now, and it's my kind of management solution, with a set-it-and-forget-it, hands-off vibe. It just works.

The client security components in Intune are based on MSE, which one could argue is pretty much the minimum when it comes to protecting a Windows-based PC. And yet, it's been enough. My kids' computers, still on MSE, and the other PCs in the house, based on Intune, have never succumbed to any electronic threat of any kind. In fact, I just performed a regular check of my kid's PCs late last week. For two kids that spend a lot of time on YouTube, playing Flash-based games online, and chatting with friends on Facebook, their PCs are notably devoid of issues. In fact, they were perfectly clean, as they've always been.

This is amusing to me because my kids are 8 and 12 years old. You may have heard about the ZD blogger who, in late April, announced he was compromised via Facebook and forever banishing Windows to a virtual machine; he would run Linux as his primary OS going forward because Windows, he said, was no longer safe "due to the constant threat of malware."

I'm ...

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