|
HomePage |
|
|
|
|
[Data Security Manager Jerry Isaacson relates what can happen if your computer isn't protected against viruses, and tells what you can do about it.]
It's 4:30 PM, you've just finished keying the chapter that brings your latest book to the critical point in your research, you've got mid-term results to review and several student e-mails to answer when you get the call from the Network Security Team that you have to shut down your computer, disconnect from the network, and then re-format your hard drive. It happened to someone in Chemistry last week, now it's your turn. You've been hit with a virus.
On top of that, this virus also announced to the world that your machine was available for use by anyone. Did I mention that you haven't backed up anything in weeks because you've been so busy – and there is that conference you're presenting at next week?
You do have anti-virus software – it came with the machine, or maybe from MIT – you're not sure, and in any case it's been a while since you updated it. You may not have known that approximately 200 new viruses are released every month.
Then there were those notices about security patches that Microsoft released, but to install them you needed to reboot the machine and that takes so long. You can do that when you get back from the conference – and back up your data at the same time.
Unfortunately, the time to do that has passed. You have, as have too many others, been infected with a computer virus which carried a Trojan Horse and/or worm. It has been eating away at your system, infecting the other departmental systems that you connect to, and most likely sending infected e-mails to everyone in your address book as well.
Welcome to the world of computer viruses.
This has happened and unfortunately will happen again to our faculty as well as staff, graduate and undergraduate students at the Institute who have not taken the threat seriously. A professor losing everything on his hard drive or a grad student losing a thesis can have disastrous impact on that individual. Spreading a virus through an e-mail you sent to a mailing list you subscribe to can further impact hundreds of others – and it could all have been easily avoided by using the tools that are readily available.
This article will provide some basic background on these threats and what we are doing to reduce their impact on the entire MIT campus. It will focus on the unique problems of our academic and research community and perhaps be successful in motivating you to follow some simple steps, requiring minimal expenditure of resources (your time, our money) to mitigate this growing problem here and world-wide.
Where do you find a virus? I've found them in a wire-wrap machine on campus being set up in a lab. I've found them on floppy disks brought to campus by visiting faculty and consultants. I've found a laptop with over 100 files infected by a virus. Almost every department and lab on campus has reported a virus at one time or another. Home computers too have been infected and have been the source of infections on campus. The biggest carrier today is e-mail attachments, even from people you know who don't know they have been infected.
Why the concern? Viruses are getting more virulent with each new generation. While early ones may have erased or corrupted files on your machine, the new ones are also designed to carry components that are subsequently used in massive attacks on the internet, triggered remotely at some future date. They harm your system and provide a source for attacking other systems, capitalizing on the openness of academic institutions and their extensive network capacity. A single desktop machine on campus has the ability to shut down a small ISP (Internet Service Provider) during an attack. That is one reason we have to disconnect and shut down infected systems – possibly your system – at times with minimal notice.
What should you do? Information Systems provides anti-virus software that can be used at home and on campus at no charge to you. We have it for just about any machines you may have, even those no longer officially supported. Most of the AV software is or can be configured to update automatically, to be ready for the hundreds of new viruses released each month. To prevent a virus attack, install anti-virus software on all of your computers at home and in your office or lab and keep the software up to date.
Where do you get anti-virus software? Several roads lead to it. To just download it, go to http://web.mit.edu/software and then select your computer type. For more in depth instructions as well as the software, go to http://web.mit.edu/is/help/virus. Click here for a list of virus protection resources.
You wouldn't think of leaving your office or house unsecure when you're not there – take the same care in protecting your computer. The entire Institute will be grateful for it.
|
HomePage |
|
|
|
|