Due to last week’s virus outbreak and the continuing spread of
new viruses on campus networks, Norton AntiVirus 8.1 software will
be required for all University network users.

Informational Technology Services and Residence Life informed
students that, due to the recent virus outbreaks, it was recommend
that they not log onto the Internet until critical patches for the
virus were installed. All students were instructed to remove
network cables from their computers until further notice.

The recent W32.Blaster.Worm outbreak that is circulating
worldwide has affected students across the campus. The worm targets
the Windows 2000 and XP operating systems. Those students that
hooked up to the network without first installing the patches were
infected with Blaster almost instantly, said Barb Coleman.

ITS is working to continue to contain the virus outbreak as much
as possible but the problem is still significant, as W32.Sobig.F@mn
and other various viruses are breaking out.

The Sobig worm is causing SLU email accounts to become
overloaded with e-mails containing subjects entitled: “Re:
Details,” “Re: Thank You!,” “Re: That movie,” and many more. The
worm is generating rather quickly and overloads the user’s e-mail
inbox in a short time period. Students receiving these e-mails are
encouraged by ITS to be patient and delete the trash e-mails
allowing your inbox to be free for important e-mails to come
though. The Sobig worm will de-activate on Sept. 10, 2003.

The outbreak led to the decision to have the entire University
on one anti-viruses software program. All users of the University
network will be required to install Norton Anti-Virus 8.1 and
update the virus definitions on a regular bases. Those individuals
that would like to use a different anti-virus program would have to
take the matter up with ITS.

“By keeping the anti-virus definitions updated and by keeping up
with any Windows updates, we can help control the kind of outbreaks
we’ve recently seen,” says Jananne Clemens, Manager of the ITS
Support Center. “Without the latest Norton AntiVirus installed,
students are at very high risk for these recent viruses. We hope we
can help eliminate that risk by assisting residential students with
installing this free Norton software, and by providing it free via
the download site to all other students.”