Sandboxing & System 76 Laptops

[me-5yx05kfkO/aqeI1yJSURBw at public.gmane.org (Matthew Gillen)]

On 02/17/2011 09:11 AM, Chris O'Connell wrote:
> Hi Guys,
> 
> My question is sort of cross platform.
> 
> I have an 86 year old user here at my work.  He's very bright, but no matter
> how many times I tell him not to click weird email links or strange websites
> he does.  The result is a weekly visit into his office to run a 45 minute
> sweep for spyware, viruses and malware.

Others have answered about sandboxing, but there are some things you can
do besides that:
Make sure his user account has the minimal amount of permissions (ie
can't install things without admin assistance, etc).  Lock down IE at
it's highest security settings (add exceptions for the handful of
known-good sites he's supposed to be accessing for his job if necessary).

Firefox and modern IE both have URL checkers built in (run by Google and
M$ respectively) that send every URL you visit to the checker to see if
it's a known malware site.  Make sure that is on for him, even if you
normally turn that off.

Force him to use an email client that won't execute things, and doesn't
know how to fire off the browser to open a link (and doesn't render
html, doesn't execute javascript itself, etc).  It won't stop a
determined malicious user from opening links, but it will at least make
him spend some effort doing it, and it seems as if the problem is that
he just doesn't think about it.

HTH,
Matt