Course name Assignment Authors Research and reporting Survey Nguyen Ngoc Long Ann Viitala Adesh Chymariya Shu Sheng Date of the report 5/2/2010 ABSTRACT
CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 3 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK, METHODOLOGY AND DATA 3 3 RESULTS 4 3.1 ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE 5 3.2 DATA BACK-UP 6 3.3 BROWSER 7 4 DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSION 8 5 RECOMMENDATIONS 8 6 REFERENCES 9
1 Introduction Data Protection is quite important for students, especially in universities. Nowadays, most students use computers in storing their assignments, essay and other works for good. Everything can go fine but sometimes it can go the other way around especially when PC starts to crash. For some reasons, one can lost everything that was stored in just a snap of a finger. That is why protecting data is required to prevent this situation to happen again. This survey is made to investigate how students of COU protect their data and how safe their data are. The investigation is conducted with the aid of the IT students of COU who are more familiar with computers and have better computer skills than the other groups of students. The target is made by focusing on two main things: (1) their experience about data security and (2) what kind of software they are using to prevent data from risks. It is believed that this survey serves the twins objectives which are to check the current status of information security in the university and also to give us an opportunity to have a better way to protect data. 2 Theoretical Framework, Methodology and Data A study revealed that 60% of corporate data were unprotected in PC desktops and laptops. One of the reasons for data loss was attributed to viruses. Each month, the PC s were infected with viruses at a rate of 10%. (Doyle 2002.) Even though they were using antivirus applications, they rarely updated their files and performed virus scan (Kandra 2003). Hardware or system malfunction is still the number one cause of data loss (American Data Recovery 2003). The corporate world is the biggest users of databases and other forms of data storage applications because their data are very important and crucial to their business operations. The statistical data and the results of the survey conducted on how the corporate world protect and secure their data will be used as the theoretical source of our research. The group mainly relied on quantitative approach in conducting the survey. A total of 15 questionnaires were given to IT students of COU belonging to BITS07K, BITS08K, and BITS09K group respectively. In each question, choices were provided for the students to tick which would then correspond to their chosen answer(s). In some questions, students need to justify their choice. [3]
After the questionnaires were collected from the students/respondents, the data gathered were tallied and analyzed. 3 Results According to our group s opinion, first of all, the survey has to analyze how safe they are in using computer. 1 Other School Workplace Public Home 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 GRAPH 1. Places where students usually have access to computers The graph above shows the places the students go to access their data or access the network. It seems that home access is the most common and at the university which are quite trusted places for this. Despite of that, there is still a chance to encounter data problem for students, question Have you ever encountered data problem? was asked then the results show below: [4]
No Yes 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 GRAPH 2. Students who encounter data loss problems It looks like students still have some problems with their information and the most common reason was due to problems with PC hardware (PC or Hard disk crashed) or from operating system. We have recorded one person that lost his/her data from school network which is quite rare. 3.1 Anti-virus software One of the reasons why students lose their information from PC is due to viruses from internet. It happens when they are browsing some sites that carry some kind of virus that can crash whole OS with their information without any defending system or firewall. Figure below shows the software the students usually use in defending their system: NOD32 Window security F-Secure Avasti Bitdefender AVG ESET Kaspersky 0 1 2 3 4 GRAPH 3. The type of anti-virus software students are using [5]
Those software listed above are quite effective for securing a system from virus but about 10/12 (83%) of respondents said that they using the free version which does not provide full function for software. The next table shows how efficient they use their anti-virus software to protect PC when they were asked How often you perform a full- system virus scan? Never When I remember or PC in danger At least once a year At least once a month At least once a week 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 GRAPH 4. The frequency of performing anti-virus scan It seems that most of the students just scan their system whenever they have some problems with the OS or they remember (42%). It means that when they scan the system, the viruses already exist in the system. Result also show about 50% have system scan in weekly or monthly. 3.2 Data Back-up On the other hand, the information is lost due to some technical problems (PC crashed or accidents). One way to prevent this situation is to back-up data, then save it to another place. Our group also asks the question about how often they back-up their data and here is the result: [6]
Never once in every 6 months At least once a year At least once a month At least once a week Everyday 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 GRAPH 5. The frequency of performing file back-up According to this graph, IT students backup their data at least once a month, about 50% respondents have back-up their information once a month and 100% respondents got data backup. 3.3 Browser Nowadays, web surfing is becoming a familiar activity to everyone and a lot of browser providers with different abilities for users to choose. This survey also found out what kind of browsers IT students usually use: Google Chorme Maxthon Opera Firefox Internet Explorer 0 2 4 6 8 10 GRAPH 6. The type of web browser students are using [7]
The result shows that most of IT students use Firefox for browsing (75%) and the reasons they gave were the following: fast and safe, have a lot add-on. This shows that they have some knowledge about their browser. 4 Discussions and Conclusions Information technology with its applications has been growing rapidly and become popular for all people including students of COU. Following with this development, information security also become important for those who always work with data. This survey captures how IT students meet their problem in data security and how they protect their information from lost or damage. The survey especially selected its target group is IT students with have skills in IT fields and should be more careful in data protection and the key point of this survey is how good they are in this field. Results of this survey help understand the trend to protect information of student and how they are aware of this risk. The result can become a key to help students of COU have a better plan for protect their personal information. Majority of the respondents of our survey revealed that they have encountered data loss problems and they attributed it to hardware or system malfunction caused by viruses from internet. Although they are using anti-virus applications, it was found out that it did not help that much because most of them are using free version and the functionality provided by those free anti-virus applications are limited. Furthermore, most of them rarely perform virus scan on a regular basis. 5 Recommendations According to this survey results, it shows that some of students are not really aware with data lost problem. If students want to prevent the risk from information security, they should have a better strategy or plan to do that. We suggest that they should have software anti-virus from trusted provider like: Microsoft, F-Secure, Kaspersky or Bitdefender. A strong password should always be implemented. In creating a password, it should be composed of at least eight characters. It is highly recommended that students perform virus scan at least twice or once a month. Furthermore, students should back up their computer data at least once a month. [8]
6 References 1. American Data Recovery. 2003. Available: http://www.adrdatarecovery.com/content/adr_loss_stat.html. Accessed 2 May 2010. 2. Doyle, Cynthia. 2002. Business Continuity in 2002: It s Not Business as Usual. IDC. 3. Kandra, A., Brandt, A. 2003. Great American Privacy. PC World. Available: http://www.pcworld.com/article/112468-3/great_american_privacy_makeover.html. Accessed 2 May 2010. [9]