On average, more than 90% of email is unwanted junk mail--spam. Many spam messages include annoying promotions for irrelevant products, but others include viruses and pornographic content, which can pose a severe legal issue for schools. Spam puts districts in a difficult situation as schools try to enhance learning in the classroom with advanced…

Unsolicited bulk email received by business users has increased exponentially in volume and complexity since the introduction of email. However, the factors that influence managers to purchase spam filters have never been fully documented or identified, only assumed. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify, understand and document…

Will that data breach be the end of a chief security officer (CSO)? Managing information security in higher education requires more than just technical expertise, especially when the heat is cranked up. This article takes a look at how two CSOs deal with hack attacks at their universities. When Purdue University Chief Information Security Officer…

In this article, four directors discuss the security challenges that keep them worried and what they do about it. Dwayne Alton describes how his school district, IT School District of Lee County, Fort Meyers, Florida, collaborated with Cisco and installed an intrusion detection system which alerts IT staff when someone creates their own access…

The purpose of this study is to explore systems users' behavior on IS under the various circumstances (e.g., email usage and malware threats, online communication at the individual level, and IS usage in organizations). Specifically, the first essay develops a method for analyzing and predicting the impact category of malicious code, particularly…

Computer security is one of the most complicated and challenging fields in technology today. A security metrics program provides a major benefit: looking at the metrics on a regular basis offers early clues to changes in attack patterns or environmental factors that may require changes in security strategy. The term "security metrics"…

Targeted email attacks to enable computer network exploitation have become more prevalent, more insidious, and more widely documented in recent years. Beyond nuisance spam or phishing designed to trick users into revealing personal information, targeted malicious email (TME) facilitates computer network exploitation and the gathering of sensitive…

As news outlets create headlines such as "A Cloud & A Prayer," "The Cloud Is the Computer," and "Leveraging Clouds to Make You More Efficient," many readers have been left with cloud confusion. Many definitions exist for cloud computing, and a uniform definition is hard to find. In its most basic form, cloud…

The ethical development of information systems is but one of those sensitive scenarios associated with computer technology that has a tremendous impact on individuals and social life. The significance of these issues of concern cannot be overstated. However, since computer ethics is meant to be everybody's responsibility, the result can often be…

Incorrect access to Web site addresses and spam e-mails are continuing to make pornography rampant on the Internet at schools, homes and libraries. Collectively, parents, teachers and members of communities must become more aware of the risks and consequences of open access to the Internet, and the distinction between censorship and Internet…

School tech services may use firewall filters to protect computer users from computer virus programs that spread as e-mail attachments, hidden in programs downloaded from Web sites, and as macros in word processing and other documents. Backups, the copy of self-created documents and grade book data should be stored in online storage space or DVD…

The United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point had a problem with some cadets clicking on suspicious attachments and embedded links, significantly affecting network performance and resource availability. West Point information technology leadership needed a way to increase e-mail security awareness in hopes of maintaining a strong…

The Association Supporting Computer Users in Education (ASCUE) is a group of people interested in small college computing issues. It is a blend of people from all over the country who use computers in their teaching, academic support, and administrative support functions. ASCUE has a strong tradition of bringing its members together to pool their…

Drawing on a review of government information management and information technology (IT) success factors, this paper compares the availability of IT policies and standards in the states. Two main objectives guide the comparative review effort. The first is to show what kinds of information policies the different states make available to citizens…

This document reports results of an online survey that examined practices and procedures in the management of electronic resources in 65 academic library reference departments. Responses are related to: (1) student population; (2) library use by community people; (3) number of public access workstations, workstations with World Wide Web access,…