Deep Freeze (software)
Deep Freeze is a "reboot to restore" piece of computer software created by Faronics Software company of North America.
Operating Systems
Deep Freeze is compatible with Microsoft's Windows Operating Systems - including Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista, newer versions of the Mac OS X operating system, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Linux operating system.
Usage
Deep Freeze is primarily targeted to four main markets:
- Education - including Schools, Universities, and other educational providers
- Government
- Library - including public and private libraries, as well as other short-term public-access networks
- Healthcare - for Hospitals, Nursing centres and other areas vulnerable to attacks from malicious software.
Deep Freeze is also used in some Internet cafes to reduce the permanent effect users can have on shared computers.
Features
Deep Freeze works by making a snapshot of a hard drive at the time of initial installation. If changes (good or bad) are made to settings on a "frozen" computer, they are lost, along with all files (e.g. Windows Updates files) that have not been placed into the "Thawspace" when the computer restarts.
Other features of Deep Freeze include:
- One-time passwords (OTPs)
- "Thawed Drives"
- Stealth mode
- Scheduled Restart/Shutdown times with support for Anti-Virus/Windows updates in Maintenance mode
- Encrypted Password protection
- System clock or time updates (only from inside the frozen operating system)
- Protected CMOS (only from inside the frozen operating system)
Viruses
Viruses, Spyware and Adware are all treated the same way as any other system or registry change and are eliminated with a reboot.
Security Flaws
As with many other software security packages, any protected drive can be permanently edited by booting into an operating system that Deep Freeze isn't installed on. An example of this would be a Linux LiveCD, or BartPE CD. The drive can be mounted read/write and then any file can be edited. This can also be used to reset passwords by using password cracking software like John the Ripper, RainbowCrack or Ophcrack. In order to get around this, one might integrate a BIOS protection password, and ensure that the CD-ROM drive is not available to boot up with.
External links
es:Deep Freeze (software)