As campus users are barraged with a seemingly endless cycle of computer
worms and viruses today, maintaining antivirus software and
performing Windows updates have become things that you make time for
as opposed to doing these things when you have time. Otherwise,
there is a penalty exacted and in the cost of lost productivity when
your computer becomes infected and must be removed from the network,
fixed, or worse yet—reinstalled from scratch. Another insidious side
effect of all of this is that if your computer becomes infected with
a worm or virus, it is then “programmed” to expend a great amount
of effort attempting to infect other computers worldwide and launch
denial of service attacks.
There are many people working
behind the scenes to prevent and detect new worms and viruses, from
antivirus vendors like Symantec to companies that offer early warning
alerts to customers, such as ISS. Here at Georgia State University,
your technology managers and IS&T staff members have been working
diligently to detect and fix hundreds of computers on campus that
became infected with the Blaster worm or variants and the SoBig virus.
A major contributor to the continuing infection growth rate on campus
are laptops with worms or viruses that are brought in from home and
connected to the campus network. Whether at work or at home, you must
utilize antivirus software and perform Windows updates on your computers.
Also, if you have a computer that you haven’t used for awhile, you
still need to make sure that it is virus and worm-free.
In order to prevent the
multitude of potentially infected systems brought in by residential
students on campus from negatively impacting network performance and
launching widespread attacks against other computers, IS&T staff
members conducted security checks on over 1200 computers that will
be used by residential students to connect to the university’s network.
This involved initially deactivating the network ports in each room
until the process of detecting and fixing worm-infected computers,
applying missing Windows updates, and installing antivirus software
and a personal firewall was completed successfully.
Village and Lofts
residents were later given the option of using a CD containing an
automated security check process and software installation files to
conduct a self-assessment of their computers. A subsequent validation
process has ensured that computers are problem-free before the residents’
internet access is enabled. Over 2500 students are moving into the
Lofts and Village housing this year, so the process of conducting
these checks in an effective and time-expedient manner has been very
challenging. However, due to the fact that the majority of students
did not have antivirus software installed or the virus signatures
were not up-to-date and were not performing Windows updates on their
systems, the positive “after effects” of ensuring that students’ systems
are reasonably protected from viruses and worms will be of great benefit
to them and important in safeguarding the campus network.