Inside Furman is published monthly during the school year by the Furman University Department of Marketing and Public Relations. For story ideas, e-mail John Roberts, editor.
Got Bugs?
By Richard Nelson
You’re probably tired of hearing about viruses, worms and Trojans, but we’re all going to have to learn to live with them. If you ignore them, they won’t go away!
In the past, if you installed anti-virus software, kept it up-do-date and did not open e-mail attachments you were not expecting, your computer would most likely remain virus free. That’s no longer the case. The newer Microsoft® operating systems are vulnerable to attack whenever your computer is switched on and attached to a network!
As these vulnerabilities are discovered, Microsoft creates software updates (sometimes referred to as Hotfixes or patches) and makes them available for downloading to your computer. Unfortunately, viruses and worms propagate so quickly that your computer may become compromised between the time the vulnerability is discovered and the time the patch is applied to your computer. This means that you not only have to keep your anti-virus software up-to-date, but also check for, download and install Windows® updates as a matter of routine.
While some viruses and worms may be detrimental to the “health” of your computer (by deleting or modifying files), others may go undetected. They can cause your computer to e-mail copies of the virus to everyone in your address book, sometimes attaching files found on your hard drive that may contain confidential information. Others quietly probe the network, looking for other computers that are vulnerable.
Because today’s computers are so powerful, and network connections are so fast, one or more compromised computers can quickly overwhelm a network. The electronic devices on our network that interconnect the wires and fiber optic cables, routing data and information to its destination, are themselves computers which, although not susceptible to viruses and worms (for the most part!), can become gridlocked trying to process all of the requests generated by the compromised computers.
Symptoms of such activity include the inability of some computers to connect to the network, wireless access points dropping connections, e-mail servers becoming “bogged down,” and difficulty connecting to network resources such as shared files and printers.
At Furman, Computing and Information Services staff help protect the network and your computer, by installing antivirus software and making sure that the latest operating system patches are applied when we set up your computer. We also configure them to download and install updates on a regular basis. In addition, we have a firewall that is used to prevent certain kinds of attack coming from the Internet.
However, as mentioned before, updates to the firewall and to software do not occur until after the vulnerability is discovered. It is also up to the individual computer user to make sure that operating system and application updates are installed (and the computer rebooted) as soon as they are received. Sometimes it is not convenient to do this. I have arrived in my office, turned on my computer, waited for it to boot, logged into the network, often to be greeted by the message “Windows updates are ready to be installed.” It can take several minutes for these updates to install themselves, and even longer for the computer to reboot and for you to log in again.
I know that many people cancel the update because they are busy and do not have the time. We must all understand that ignoring these updates will have a serious detrimental effect on your co-workers, our students, and on the Internet community as a whole. Even our Macintosh® and UNIX/Linux users feel the effect of a network and mail system paralyzed by viruses and worms.
I hope you are now convinced that you should take whatever time is necessary to keep your computer worm and virus free! However, beware of updates and patches you may receive in the mail. Microsoft does not send out patches by e-mail. If you receive such a patch, it is probably infected with a virus or worm and is being sent to you by an infected system. Also, do not be susceptible to “social engineering” and ignore those messages telling you to delete jdbgmgr.exe from your system folder!
If you are a Macintosh® or UNIX/Linux user, don’t laugh, and don’t be complacent! A poorly-managed (or unmanaged) UNIX/Linux system is susceptible to other kinds of attack, and the Mac operating system is not immune to viruses and worms. The virus and worm creators have not turned their attention to the Macintosh…yet.
(The writer is director of Computing and Information Services)