By Amelia Nielson-Stowell
Give your computer all the medication it needs, because a nasty virus is spreading around campus.
On Monday, Jan. 26, computers of many students, faculty and staff were infected with the Novarg virus.
Brent Harker, director of Web communications for BYU, said he 'came aware this morning that a lot came from a University Communications e-mail.'
According to the Symantec''s Web site, the virus, called W32.Novarg.A@mm, 'is a mass-mailing worm that arrives as an attachment with the file extension .bat, .cmd, .exe, .pif, .scr, or .zip.'
Once a computer is infected, 'the worm will set up a backdoor into the system...which can potentially allow an attacker to connect to the computer and use it as a proxy to gain access to its network resources.'
Harker said the worm 'spoofs' e-mail addresses. If the worm obtains access to a machine, it will send viruses to any address in the computer. He said many of the worms that have hit the university in the past have the ability to spoof the University Communications e-mail address.
The virus will spread itself to as many computers as possible. The subject of the e-mail is usually 'hello,' 'hi,' or 'test.'
The message may appear to come from someone the recipient knows; recent mailings have come through the University Communications e-mail.
Students, faculty and staff are advised to delete the e-mail, unread. The worm has a trigger date to stop spreading on Feb. 12, 2004.
The Symantec''s Web site warns that on Feb. 1, 2004, the Norvag worm will perform a denial of service.
Nyle Elison, product manager for the Office of Information Technology, said a denial of service 'makes your computer so busy that it is unable to respond to network communication from other computers, such as Web sites and e-mails. It makes your computer so busy that it is unusable.'
Harker said students and faculty should know a few important points about messages from University Communications.
E-mails from University Communications will never be sent with attachments, the subject of the e-mail is always set up in a strict professional format and there will be a message from Brent Harker in the e-mail.
Harker said the e-mails sent by the virus, 'don''t fit the pattern we use.'
Laura Workman, a sophomore, majoring in vocal performance, received an e-mail containing the virus Monday afternoon.
'I thought it was safe because it was coming from an e-mail list I was on,' Workman said. 'I thought it was something important.'
Workman, who opened the attachment not knowing it was a virus, said her computer 'started freaking out and popping up little messages saying that the Norton anti-virus program was sending messages.'
Workman said the virus has 'been hitting me a lot,' and found out the hard way that by opening the virus, it starts sending itself from the user''s e-mail to the addresses in the user''s address book.
'I immediately started telling people ,' Workman said. 'I told all my roommates, called people I knew, called my brother. People think it is trustworthy because it''s from someone that we trust. I''m sure no one even thought it would go to University Communications.'
Elison said to fix the virus and future virus problems, computer owners should install a virus utility and keep it up to date.
'Anyone that had a virus utility installed and kept it up to date has not had a problem with the virus,' Elison said.
To get an anti-virus program on a computer, Elison advises students to download it offline. After logging into Route Y, the link 'Enterprise Software' features anti-virus programs for a PC or Mac. BYU has bought Norton anti-virus for every student, so downloading the anti-virus program from BYU is free of charge.
Norton Anti-Virus disks can also be purchased for $1.50 at the Office of Information Technology or computer labs across campus.
To receive more information about the virus or to quickly remove the virus, go to the Symantec security alert Web site at http://www.symantec.com.