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Urgent Virus Warning: UD computer users must prepare for expected future attacks

4:56 p.m., May 7, 2004--In just this current academic year, the University community’s computers have been hit by three major virus or worm attacks.

The Blaster/LoveSAN worms of August 2003, this winter’s Netsky and Bagel viruses, and the current outbreak of variants on the Sasser worm all showed how much inconvenience can be caused by viruses, worms and Trojan horses.

For example, to protect other systems on our network, the University disconnected more than 1,000 infected computers from the network during the recent Sasser outbreak. In addition, hundreds of Windows computers shut down unexpectedly in response to the Sasser worm’s attempts to infect those systems. Further, hundreds of Windows systems may still be vulnerable either to infection or disabling attacks from these worms.

Be forewarned: More malicious software is coming. According to published reports, hackers are working on new attacks that will combine the worst attacks from several different worms and viruses.

These are credible threats of future disruptions that will occur, thanks to the Internet’s ability to expedite file sharing, sooner rather than later.

Therefore, University of Delaware students, faculty, and staff must be prepared.

• Keep your computer’s anti-virus software current.
  http://www.udel.edu/topics/virus/mcafee
  http://www.udel.edu/topics/virus/alerts (Virus Alerts)

• Keep your computer’s operating system current.
  http://www.udel.edu/topics/windowsxp/XPupdate.html
  
  
• Make back-up copies of your files, and store those back-up copies on media separate from your computer (e.g,, back them up to CDs, tapes, diskettes, etc.).