Malware is ####

Just because you're being paid does not mean that you cannot restrict your customers' viewing habits in the interest of maintaining security. These are kids or extremely young adults. You're providing the living space, the computers, and the internet service. You get to make the rules.

Every person has to decide how much freedom they are willing to sacrifice in order to increase their security. People of any age who want complete control over their own system rent apartments, pay for their own internet service, and install the security software they choose, if any. People who prefer the more inexpensive lifestyle of bulk housing (or are too young or foolish to have amassed the capital that gives them the right to anything more) must expect to have to abide by a few rules in order to avoid chaos, including the very type of chaos you refer to: malware on every computer so that everyone is at the mercy of everyone else's bad choices.

Write the rules into your rental agreements in advance. Then you, the students, and your network will all be fine.

Firewalls do not have to restrict viewing habits. get a firewall
that can control both incoming and outgoing ports and block
ports used by malware. Also you might get one that can enforce
workstation firewall use such as some of the linksys or
watchguard etc. Then you would be enforcing user to have
ZoneAlarm or the like.

Oh Yeah, education is the real key. All the students understand
when a pc is running slow. help them understand what the
malware does.

razz

That is not so much a firewall issue as a policy issue IMO. Let them view whatever they want if that is the policy, but don't let them install anything without permission and enforce it with GPO's. It should be easy to convince Student Housing that the Liability would be too great alone, much less the cost of maintaining it this way.