By Valeria Carrano

Northeastern University’s ResNet team has been working to protect student and campus computers from recent viruses and worms that have been floating around inflicting the university’s systems. One known way that the virus has been invading the system is through file sharing applications.

Northeastern’s Information Technology Security Manager, Glen Hill said a virus is a computer program that replicates and spreads by attaching itself to other programs and documents. A worm is a program that replicates and spreads by copying itself via automatically-generated e-mail messages, where the email attachment contains the worm program.

“Anybody can write a virus with a little knowledge and practice,” Hill said.

Many worms and viruses hit computers over the summer, nesting in about 30 percent of students computers on campus. When students plugged in their computers in the residence halls, the worms and viruses were then sent over the network, affecting ResNet.

“The sick machines are making ResNet slower for everyone,” said Robert Weir, Vice President of Information Services.

The BLASTER worm, which targets computers running Windows 2000 and Windows XP machines, and the Welchia worm which targets a variety of computers running Microsoft operating systems are two of the most common worms inflicting computers. These worms spread by themselves and have infected computers around the world.

Another widespread virus is Sobig.F worm, which also targets computers running Microsoft operating systems. It causes infected computers to send infected e-mails to other computers.

In order to help students protect their machines against the worms, ResNet handed out flyers with directions on how to prevent and rid a computer of a virus. They also handed out antivirus CDs in some residence halls on campus and in the ResNet office.

Students can defend themselves by downloading new updates on Microsoft programs to keep their systems current and continually running antivirus software. The university is also taking precautions by monitoring the network so that they can spot a virus on infected computers. They have filters in the system that strip viruses off e-mails going in and out. The filters, however, only work for e-mails coming in and out of Northeastern’s e-mail system, not for outside e-mail accounts such as Hotmail and Yahoo!.

ResNet is also sending a team to different residence halls on campus where they have detected a higher number of viruses among students computers. They are setting up tables in the lobbies of residence halls with help and information regarding the viruses. Students can also log on to help.neu.edu and go to the link which helps download antivirus software, or go to the InfoCommons in Snell Library or ResNet Resources Center at 47 Stetson West for other virus protection software.