Computer viruses are a fact of life. Viruses are mini-programs written by hackers that cause various malfunctions in computer systems. They are often sent as email attachments disguised as harmless pictures, games, or jokes. When the unsuspecting user opens the file, the virus attacks the data on the machine and/or network, often rendering the machine(s) unusable. There have been many thousands of these viruses created over the years. Fortunately, there are also some very creative and productive people creating anti-virus programs that render the viruses harmless, if they're detected early enough. There are several commercial anti-virus programs available for all popular computer platforms. Although some damage due to viruses is inevitable, keeping the virus definitions files used by these anti-virus programs up to date can significantly reduce the risk of data loss.
At COA we use a product called Command Antivirus made by a company called Authentium on all college PCs. On the Macintosh side we use Norton AntiVirus.
Both of these programs work essentially like this: First, they monitor all activity on the computer (file downloads, programs, and system functioning) for virus-like activity. If any is detected, the activity is halted and the offending program's code is checked against a database of known viruses. If the antivirus program finds a match, the virus is deleted (if possible) and a report is generated as to which virus was detected and whether it was deleted or not. Whenever a virus is detected on your computer, please write down any messages F-Prot(pc) or Norton(mac) displays and contact someone in computer services immediately! It is very important that all viruses be reported as soon as possible so precautionary measures can be taken against further attacks.
There are several things you can do to help protect college equipment from virus attacks. One is to never open any email attachments that end with the suffix .exe . Exe attachments (short for executable file) are the number 1 way that viruses are spread. Please don't open them.
Another way you can help protect college machines from virus attacks is to update your virus profiles regularly. Virus profiles are a comprehensive list of virus descriptions that your antivirus program uses to compare suspected viruses against to determine whether your machine is infected or not. Since many dozens (if not hundreds) of new viruses are created every week, it's important to have the most up to date profiles installed on your machine. For step-by-step instructions on how to update your virus profiles, see below.
And finally, please be aware that there are at least as many hoaxes as there are viruses. Since a virus attack can cost many hours of computer downtime (and thus backlogs of work) there is a justifiable fear of being susceptible to them. Many people take advantage of this fear by creating virus hoaxes, fictitious descriptions of viruses complete with outrageous suggestions as to how you should protect yourself from them. These are created with the intent of wasting people's time and energy preparing themselves for something that will not happen. There are many other types of computer hoaxes as well, including the one that Microsoft is giving away money (if you just forward this email to everyone you know you'll make $30,000 etc. etc.). Another recent hoax claimed that a fungus growing on bananas was going to spread some horrible disease (so send this email to all of your friends immediately!). If you get an email, even if it is from someone you know and love, that is forwarded from someone else and claims to be urgent and encourages you to send it to everyone you know immediately, it's probably a hoax. These hoaxes are designed to cause slowdowns of network and internet traffic worldwide and sometimes do. If each person sends it to ten or twenty others, it doesn't take long before there are literally hundreds of thousands of pointless emails flying around. Hoaxes are also designed to make you look foolish in the eyes of more seasoned internet users. So, before you decide to make it rich by forwarding an email for Bill Gates (and sharing the wealth with your friends), check out these sites first:
http://www.commandcom.com/
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/index.html
http://www.vmyths.com/
http://www.mcafeeb2b.com/asp_set/anti_virus/alerts/intro.asp
http://www.itd.umich.edu/virusbusters/
http://urbanlegends.about.com/science/urbanlegends/cs/virushoaxes/index.htm
Also, feel free to download this excellent PDF on viruses: Virus Tutorial.pdf (590k)
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