“A brand new machine could be plugged into the network, and within seconds, be infected by the Blaster worm,” he said. “Students should take this as an extremely serious threat. Everyone should go and run this tool.”
While Harvard will not require students to install the patch, HASCS is using posters and flyers to educate students about the necessity of using virus-scanning software, Windows updates and the patch on the HASCS website to prevent infection and repair infected computers.
Since the Blaster worm causes infected computers to successively reboot, Davis said, he does not anticipate hesitation among affected users to use the patch.
“With Blaster, if your machine has it, you’ll know it, and if you get symptoms, it’s pretty clear you have to run this tool,” he said.
As students head back to universities across the country, the viruses have wreaked havoc and caused several campus networks to temporarily shut down.
Concerns about the viruses prompted Brown University to implement a network registration tool which scanned newly connected computers for the appropriate updates and patches, and then directed users to install those that were missing.
About 50 percent return to school with vulnerabilities in their computers, said Connie Sadler, Brown’s information technology security director.
“If you hadn’t updated in the last few days, you were vulnerable,” Sadler said.
The high numbers of students who use laptops—about 80 percent—to move among different networks also greatly increases the chance of spreading viruses, HASCS Director Franklin M. Steen said.
The SpamAssassin software which HASCS made availabe to students and faculty last year also identifies many of the e-mails sent out by the Sobig virus, though it does not delete them, said Steen.
“The SpamAssassin filter identifies a lot of [Sobig e-mails], but students still have to check their spam folders,” Steen said. “The e-mails add up very quickly, and they might fill the inbox and not allow in any more mail.”
Although many students have not yet protected their systems against these current threats, Davis said that most have become more alert about their Internet use.
“Students have gotten a lot more wary and cautious. They’re not using Outlook, and they’re being careful about opening attachments,” he said. “What’s happened is that they’ve caught up to the threats that were present a couple of years ago, but there’s still a lot more to do.”
—Staff Writer Katharine A. Kaplan can be reached at kkaplan@fas.harvard.edu.