Social Security Remediation

Purdue University Calumet has implemented tools for Social Security Number Remediation. Faculty and staff members may use the procedures linked through the TIPS FOR FACULTY & STAFF page to help keep their Social Security Number safe.
Click here for SSN Remediation info!

Tips for faculty and staff

Purdue University Calumet faculty and staff can use these tips to help create a safe and secure computing environment in their area, in which data is kept secure. If you follow these tips you can help protect yourself and your computer. Also, you will learn how you can secure your office.   Faculty and Staff Tips

Tips for Students

Purdue University Calumet students can use these tips to help them keep their laptops safe and to help them keep their class work safe. Also, students will learn what they can do in public labs on campus to stay secure.   Student Tips

Resource Access

There are many different resources that are available to faculty, staff and students on campus. To learn about these resources and how you can obtain access to them follow the link.   Resource Access

Have you received a suspicious e-mail?

If you believe that you have received an email that contains a virus or is suspicious, please forward it to abuse@calumet.purdue.edu immediately. E-mails send to this address are checked regularly, and early detection of any e-mail virus outbreak could be crucial to stopping the threat before it becomes a threat to the campus.

Challenge Question Implementation has arrived!

You can set up security questions so you can get your passwords changed over the phone! Click Here to sign up!

Spyware is a general term used for software that performs certain behaviors such as advertising, collecting
personal information, or changing the configuration of your computer, generally without obtaining your consent.

Spyware can also be install by adding programs that you might want (like Kazaa when that was all the rage),
but carries "rider" programs.

A piece of spyware rarely lives alone: an affected computer can rapidly become infected with large numbers of spyware
components. Users frequently notice unwanted behavior and degradation of system performance.

A spyware infestation can create significant unwanted CPU activity, disk usage, and network traffic which thereby slows
down legitimate uses of these resources. Stability issues, such as application or system-wide crashes, are also common.
Spyware which interferes with networking software commonly causes difficulty connecting to the Internet.

Some other types of spyware (Targetsoft, for example) modify system files to make them harder to remove.
Targetsoft modifies the "Winsock" Windows Sockets files. The deletion of the spyware-infected file "inetadpt.dll" will
interrupt normal networking usage, preventing access to network resources and the Internet.

Many spyware advertisements use animation or flickering banners which can be visually distracting and annoying.

These programs can change your Web browser's home page or search page, or add additional components to your browser
you don't need or want.

These programs also make it very difficult for you to change your settings back to the way you originally had them.

Spyware gets on a system through deception of the user or through exploitation of software vulnerabilities.

The most direct route by which spyware can infect a computer involves the user installing it. So many spyware programs
deceive the users by tricking the users to do something that installs the software without them realizing.

Sometimes the distributor of spyware presents the program as a useful utility - for instance as a "Web accelerator" or as
a helpful software agent. Users download and install the software without immediately suspecting that it could cause harm.
Some spyware programs get spread in just this manner.

Spyware can also come bundled with shareware or other downloadable software, as well as music CDs. The user downloads
a program (for e.g. a music program or a file-trading utility) and installs it, and the installer additionally installs the spyware.

Another way of distributing spyware involves tricking users by manipulating security features designed to prevent unwanted
installations. The Internet Explorer Web browser, by design, prevents websites from initiating an unwanted download.

Some spyware infect a system by attacking security holes in the Web browser or in other software. When the user navigates
to a Web page controlled by the spyware author, the page contains code which attacks the browser and forces the download
and installation of spyware.

Spyware is often associated with software that displays advertisements (called adware) or software that tracks personal
or sensitive information.

Spyware has principally become associated with identity theft in that keyloggers are routinely packaged with spyware.
(John Bambenek, who researches information security, estimates that identity thieves have stolen over 24 billion US dollars
of account information in the United States alone.)

Spyware-makers may perpetrate another sort of fraud with dialer program spyware: wire fraud. Dialers cause a computer with
a modem to dial up a long-distance telephone number instead of the usual ISP. This invariably results in massive telephone bills
that the user is liable for.

Spyware differs from viruses and worms in that it does not usually self-replicate.

Like many recent viruses, however, spyware - by design - exploits infected computers for commercial gain. Typical tactics
furthering this goal include delivery of unsolicited pop-up advertisements; theft of personal information (including financial
information such as credit card numbers); monitoring of Web-browsing activity for marketing purposes; or routing of HTTP
requests to advertising sites.

Virus scans may not remove Spyware.