By Scott Smith
smith@newsroom.byu.edu
Six months after the 'I Love You' computer virus was unleashed on the world, a strain is still lurking around campus and infecting computers.
This has prompted the Office of Information Technology to alert students to the dangers of Computer viruses, and the painless way to protect computers from infection.
A press release from the office of IT said they have been establishing procedures to help stop the spread of viruses, but in order to be completely successful, the procedures require that up-to-date virus protection software be running on every computer connected to the campus network, including student laptops.
'We are exploring options for cutting down the number of viruses that enter campus via email,' stone said. 'No central protection is 100 percent guaranteed to stop viruses, nor will central protection save users from a virus infected floppy.'
The Virus Research Center web page at www.symantec.com said each unprotected computer is potentially a week link in a computer system, providing a place where viruses can infiltrate and spread.
To help combat the virus problem on campus, the Office of Information Technology has provided information in the support section of their web page http://it.byu.edu
Links in the support section lead to web pages of virus protection companies Symantec, McAfee, and Eliashim.
'Since new types of viruses are continually being introduced, virus software must be updated in a timely manner to be effective,' said David Orton, Customer Relations Manager for the office of IT.
This allows the software to recognize new viruses and know how to eliminate them from a system
Viruses can infect computers through various ways, including floppy disks or removable hard drives, email attachments and downloaded files.
For email viruses, Brad Stone, director of customer relations for the Office of Information Technology said recipients of email should be suspicious of any email from an unknown source.
He said students should never open an attachment with a .vbs extension or icon.
Orton said the office of Information Technology wants students to know the software is available, and should be used.
'I've talked to people who have had there thesis destroyed by a virus, some times they had a backup, some times they didn't,' Orton said, 'others have been very lucky and happy they did install the virus protection software and everything was ok.'
The Virus Research Center web page at www.symantec.com also has a section that teaches about various common viruses, what they can and cannot do.
For example, the Virus Research Center says viruses don't infect computer hardware such as monitors or computer chips; they only infect software.
Also, Macintosh viruses don't infect DOS-based computer software, and vice versa.