Colleges Take on Computer Viruses
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa colleges hit hard by computer viruses, spam and spyware are fighting back.
Last fall, the viruses swarmed the state’s three public universities, infecting thousands of computers and threatening to shut down networks, leaving students and faculty without access to the Internet for weeks.
This fall, the University of Northern Iowa will require students who live in residence halls to have their computers scanned for viruses before connecting to the UNI network. Iowa State University and the University of Iowa are considering the same strategy, and all three schools have bought or plan to buy software to protect them.
Iowa university officials say it’s hard to quantify how much has been spent on viruses this academic year. The cost, however, keeps rising. Not only do universities have to pay employees to fix infected computers, but other projects fall by the wayside when a virus hits. Students suffer because they can’t access assignments on the Internet or communicate with teachers and friends.
“I can’t open up half my stuff half the time,” said Jeremy Evans, a University of Iowa industrial engineering student from Des Moines.
The Blaster virus – named for a file named MSBlast.exe that it created on infected computers – contaminated about three-fourths of the 4,000 computers in UNI’s dorms in August, university spokesman Todd Thomas said.
“It really was a nightmare for quite a while,” he said. “I put in about 100 hours a week for two weeks.”
Iowa State paid $10,000 last fall for student employees to remove the Blaster virus from thousands of computers and upgrade virus software.
The University of Iowa weathered the Blaster virus with few problems only to be hit in late August with the Welchia worm, which could have shut down the university’s network if technicians hadn’t acted quickly, said Jane Drews, the school’s information technology security officer.
“There were six to eight people taken off their normal jobs for a period of weeks, and my staff didn’t do anything else for a month,” she said.
Blaster and other viruses have forced Iowa’s universities to find new ways to fight back.
“We’re looking at what we might do differently next fall,” said Mike Bowman, assistant director for information technology security at ISU.
Iowa State already makes antivirus software available for free to students, faculty and staff, but Bowman said they may distribute CDs with the software to students when they return in August.
Other schools have also taken steps to fight back.
Buena Vista University in Storm Lake has avoided many viruses because each of its 1,700 computers – the university gives each student a laptop computer – has antivirus software that is updated regularly, said Ken Clipperton, managing director of University Information Services.
The school also requires students to download Windows updates so the network will be protected from worms, viruses that spread by looking for similar computers.
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