For Preventive Computer Medicine - Annotated Bibliography Example

Annotated Bibliography for Preventive Medicine - Avoiding Infections from Computer Viruses, Spyware, and Malware Acohido, B. (2009, April 29). Panda puts antivirus service on Net for free. USA Today, April 29, 2009, Money section p. 6b. Acohido discusses the new innovation from Panda Security Corporation in which antivirus software resides on a secure data server rather than the individual user’s hard drive. Using the Internet cloud allows a faster and more seamless user experience because hard drive space and memory resources aren’t taken up with running a system wide scan. This is an important innovation because there are far fewer downloads for the end user and the experience does not drain memory during a scan. Bradbury, D. (2009, May 26). Free security software vs commercial. Computer Weekly serial online, 19-19. Bradbury offers a short critique of free anti-viral software compared with commercially produced anti-viral software, and concludes that the commercially developed type is more up to date. He recommends that the enhanced features and additional protections offered by paid-for versions are worth the extra money. One reason consumers don’t protect their computers properly is that they feel shelling out money for anti-virus software is a scam or too painful on the budget, so this article supports my recommendation of using paid-for scanning software. Edelman, B. (2007, February). How can I guard against spyware? Popular Science, 270(2), 74. This is an extremely short article but does make some interesting recommendations, such as carefully researching freeware, dashboard add-ons, and screensavers before downloading them. If the company does not pass the research test or other users have experienced problems, those programs should be avoided. Garcia, E. (2006, January 9). Fighting spyware is a never-ending battle. eWeek 23(2), 41-45 (2 pp.). Garcia recommends taking a proactive approach to infections by using the most cutting edge software to prevent rather than cure computer infections. He notes that integrated systems are probably better than standalone software. This article helps to shape my recommendation that preventing computer problems is an overall approach, even though that requires more attention and management from the end user. Goldsbourgh, R. (2009, March 20). Avoiding glitches is better than fixing them. Business Journal (Central New York) 23(12), 7-8. A series of good tips for avoiding crashes, bugs and virus problems, including the typical advice of using the most up to date antivirus software, carefully checking all incoming files and links, and creating system backups. Good basic support opinion for several points in my essay. JAMM (2003, April). Avoiding computer viruses. Journal of Audiovisual Media in Medicine 26(4), 172-173. Short article containing almost the same tips as several others, but does give the web addresses of a few resources that warrant further investigation for this essay such as the US Department of Energy’s Hoaxbusters page and the Computer Associates Virus Encyclopedia. Jelinski, J. (1997, June 9). Can your computer get sick? Business Journal Serving Southern Tier, CNY, Mohawk Valley, Finger Lakes, North 11(12), 12SB. Historical background for beginning of computer virus era. Jelinski presents a simplified overview of the origins of viruses and how to avoid them. This is relevant to my essay because the article presents the same simple advice given for the past 12 years. Kite, S. (2009, August 17). Ghosts in the machine: Attacks may come from inside computers. Securities Industry News 21(18), 1-19 (2 pp.). Kite discusses the newest threat to computer safety: malware threaded directly into chips at manufacturing time. He also outlines a set of best practices which the National Institute of Standards and Technology is developing to combat such nearly-undetectable threats. Larkin, E. (2009, August). Coordinated malware resists eradication. PC World 27(8), 45-46. Larkin discusses bots, which create a malware-downloading network among millions of PCs at once through Internet connections. The sidebar contains current information about security software patches and the article contains several website addresses which warrant further research for my essay. Matthes, K. (1991, July). Is there a doctor in the house? Management Review 80(7), 5-6. Excellent historical document which is still relevant to the current era of computer viruses/malware/spyware. Matthes reports on several surveys run in the late 1980s and early 1990s that outline how network managers were using protection software at the time. McCartney, L. (2005, December 15). Avoiding worms and viruses. Baseline 53, 29-30. McCartney discusses worms and bots in this article and presents an overview of security software. He also talks a little about how antivirus/security software developers are working with law enforcement to apprehend malicious coders. This article is a good source of support for my recommendations. Rozas, C., Khosravi, H., Sunder, D., and Bulygin, Y. (2009, June). Enhanced detection of malware. Intel Technology Journal 13(2), 6-15. Peer reviewed journal article discussing the history of malware and its purposes. The article contains an in depth discussion of cloud computing, which relates to the Acohido article from USA Today. It’s important to have an understanding of cloud computing because that is the next step for computers, and antivirus software is starting to step away from an individual end user application to a more broad based technology. Stafford, T. and Urbaczewski, A. (2004, September). Spyware: the ghost in the machine. Communications of AIS, 2004(14), 291-306. Peer reviewed journal article going into great depth on the definition and purpose of spyware. The authors provide several recommendations for preventions and protections, so even though the article is several years old it is still a good support for this essay. Teer, F., Kruck, S., and Kruck, G. (2007, Spring). Empirical study of students’ computer security practices/perceptions. Journal of Computer Information Systems 47(3), 105-110. Peer reviewed journal article that surveyed undergraduate students to determine how much knowledge they had of security software and firewalls. The article contains a broad literature review which supports the background of my essay. Briefly, the survey found that 91 percent of respondents had antivirus software installed on their computers, 71 percent regularly update the software, and only 21 percent performed daily scans of their computers. This survey provides good support for the idea that although antivirus software is readily available and usually installed on systems, it is poorly used because of end user attitude or lack of knowledge. Torres, N. (2007, February). Under lock and key. Entrepreneur 35(2), 92-93. Briefly discusses securing business computer networks, whether they are individual or small business size. May be somewhat useful for my essay in that it delves into security rather than sticking with strictly antivirus/spyware software. Read More