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What Is A Virus?

A computer virus is a malicious program that affects your system in a number of ways. Generally, what we call viruses are actually broken down into three general groups: viruses, worms, and trojans. Each is defined below:

Virus: strictly speaking, a virus is a self-replicating file that infects other programs on a computer without any user interaction. This means that once a computer has downloaded a virus, it will infect your system by itself.

Worm: while a virus infects files on a user’s computer, a worm infects files and then uses those files to send itself out to other computers, usually via email attachments or shared folders. While viruses usually spread relatively slowly, worms potentially can infect tens of thousands of unprotected computers before anti-virus companies have identified how to protect against it.

Trojan Horse: Trojan horses are programs that open up your system’s security so that it can be easily hacked into from an outside computer. Generally these programs are not self-replicating, meaning they must be placed or sent specifically to a computer by an individual with malicious intent.

There are a variety of companies that provide anti-virus software. Symantec(Norton) Anti-Virus and McAfee are probably the most common, but you can find a complete review of most anti-virus programs on sites like http://www.pcworld.com/ and http://www.zdnet.com/. ResNet highly recommends anti-virus software be installed on all computers!  Students living in the residential halls are required to have Symantec Anti-Virus installed on their computers.

Keeping Your System Virus Free

There are five crucial steps to keeping your system virus free.

1. Keep an up to date version of an anti-virus program running on your computer. This means first, owning anti-virus software, and second, keeping it up to date. You can purchase anti-virus software online, at any computer store, or at the campus computer store, usually for under $30. Second, all current commercial anti-virus programs have automated reminders that tell you when to update your virus definitions (the list of viruses the program can identify). Whenever your anti-virus program reminds you to update your definitions, allow it to complete the process.
2. Update your operating system.  Check for regular updates to your operating system via the companies website.  Most operating systems will check automatically for updates and either install them or notify the user that updates are ready and avialable to install.  Updates are regularly distributed to fix security flaws that hacks or viruses can exploit to compromise your computer. 
3. When sharing files over a network, enable read-only access. If you haven’t enabled file sharing and nobody else uses your computer, you don’t need to worry about this step. However, if you are sharing files over the campus network, make sure other users cannot modify (or infect) the files on your computer. To do this, go to the shared drive or folder, right-click on it, and select Sharing. Click on permissions and make sure that you don’t have full-control, change, or write access enabled.
4. Don't open or download attachments from emails unless you know exactly what the file is. Many of the most prolific viruses (or actually, worms, see above) are called mass-mailers because they send a copy of themselves to every email address in the infected computer’s address book, internet cache, or registry. You may receive an unusual attachment from someone you know but do not open or download the attachment until you are sure it is not infected.  Most anti-virus applications will scan email attachments.
5. Remember that ResNet is there to assist you.  Give ResNet a call at x8921 with any questions you might have about your computer.

Eliminating A Virus On Your System

If You Have Anti-Virus Software: If your computer has been infected with a virus, you can initiate a anti-virus scan to clean the virus infection.  Locate and start the anti-virus application on your computer.  The scanning process will then look at each individual file on your computer for possible virus infection.  When a virus has been encountered, you will typically be prompted to clean, delete, quarantine or ignore the file in question.  Cleaning the file will attempt to remove the virus infection and restore the contents of the file back to what it was before the infection.  Deleting the file will remove the file from your system.  Quarantine will move the file into an issolated location on your computer to be processed later.  Ignoring the file will leave the file untouched.  Cleaning the file is the best choice.  If the file cannot be cleaned, it should be quarantined or deleted.  If the file is part of the operating system, deleting it can cause the system to become unstable.   If the infection is significant, technical assistance may be necessary to completely clean a system of a virus infection.  ResNet support will be happy to help you with the virus removal process.  Please give us a call at x8921 or (909)748-8921. 

If You Do Not Have Anti-Virus Software: It is highly recommended that you obtain anti-virus software to protect your system.  ResNet is available to help you resolve a virus infection and help with getting anti-virus software installed on your computer.

Students living on campus are provided with an anti-virus solution.  When connected to the ethernet jack in any of the suites of the residential halls, students are prompted to install policy management software.  The policy management software, Impulse, will evaluate the connected system to make sure it has Symantec Anti-Virus installed.  If it finds that the required anti-virus software is not installed, the student is provided a link to install it. 

Students residing off-campus or in special on-campus housing, are encouraged to obtain anti-virus software.  Numerous companies provide anti-virus solutions.  Symantec, McAfee, Grisoft, CA, Kaspersky, Panda, NOD32 and AvastGo are the most common.  Several of these products are available in trial editions and some even have free editions.  Trial versions usually last thirty to sixty days.  Free versions are usually abbreviated versions of their more robust counterpart.  A free version or trial version is much better than not have any anti-virus software. Some of these companies provide scan tools from their websites, although if a virus is found, it will not clean it without purchasing their solution.