The Law Library network is secure and backed-up weekly. Law students can save documents to the H:\ drive of the network in personalized folders. Saving documents to the network will ensure that all documents will be backed-up, secure, and free from viruses. All library computers are scanned for viruses with the Norton AntiVirus.
The likelihood that your laptop computer will be hit by a virus increases if you access the Internet, swap software with friends, or exchange files via e-mail. Here are some basic questions and answers about viruses.
What is a virus?
A computer virus is defined as a program code that replicates itself on execution and creates undesirable effects.
What does a virus do?
Virtually every virus tries to do one thing first: spread to other programs and data files on your hard disk. When you boot up from an infected disk, open an infected file or run an infected program, the virus's code is copied into your PCs memory. From there, the code usually attempts to attach itself to other files. The virus code may also alter data/file contents, cause program crashes, display annoying screen messages, degrade system performance or even destroy all of your disk files.
What are the most common viruses?
Boot Sector Viruses. These infect a diskette's or hard disk's boot sector, which is normally read by the operating system at bootup or when the disk is accessed. A boot sector virus usually spreads when an infected diskette is used in the A: drive. Boot sector viruses may interfere with the startup process or destroy the disk's directory table.
File Viruses. A file virus' code attaches itself to operating system executables such as COMMAND.COM or WIN.COM. The code may then infect other applications.
Multipartite Viruses. Multipartite viruses are distributed in one format and then transform to another. They may, for example, begin by infecting the master boot record and then move on to attach EXE or COM files.
Stealth Viruses. A stealth virus disguises its presence in memory or on disk. A stealth virus that has corrupted a drive's boot sector may intercept a request from diagnostic utilities examining the boot sector and transmit a false image of the original, uninfected boot record.
Polymorphic Viruses. These viruses dynamically change their code as they spread from file to file, making detection difficult. Some of the most prevalent polymorphic viruses are Form.A, a boot sector virus, and One Half.3544, a multipartite boot sector virus that also infects COM and EXE files.
Macro Viruses. A macro virus hides in an application's document template or special macro file and is primarily a problem if you are a Microsoft Word user. The WordBasic language built into Microsoft World allows sophisticated formatting instructions to be executed automatically within any Word document. Virus programmers put their destructive code in a document template and rename it with a DOC extension. When you open the infected file, it loads into Word as its own style template. It then copies the destructive instructions to the global macro pool where the code can spread to other document templates and ruin the format of other documents as you open them.
I know diskettes can carry viruses. How else can I catch one?
The popularity of file hunting on the Web, coupled with utilities that automatically open e-mail attachments, can greatly increase the risk of virus infection. If you download files from the Internet or receive e-mail messages with file attachments, you run the same risk of infection as you would copying those files from a diskette. If you use your browser to cruise the Web and just read text and look at pictures, the chances of activating a process that will infect your hard disk are very small.
What is a virus Hoax?
Most virus alerts that you receive by e-mail will be hoaxes. The panic that these hoaxes cause and the mass of e-mail messages that are propagated by the panic is the actual purpose of the hoax. This type of panic, although harmless, can produce thousands of messages and bring e-mail servers to their knees. Common hoaxes of the past are GOOD TIMES, JOIN THE CREW, PEN PAL, AOL 4 FREE, and BILL GATES SENDS YOU 1000 DOLLARS.
What about e-mail viruses?
Until recently, you could not become infected from just receiving and reading a basic text only e-mail message. However, some e-mail packages such as Netscape 4.x, Eudora 4.x, and Microsoft Outlook/Express are vulnerable to an attachment long file name attack. If you are running any of these e-mail packages there are upgrades that can be downloaded from each vendor. You can also become infected if you open or execute an e-mail attachment that contains a virus.
Here are some of the basic rules concerning e-mail:
(1) If you receive an e-mail that urges you to pass it along to your friends, don't. The panic that you spread may be the purpose behind the e-mail.
(2) If you receive an e-mail with an attachment from someone you don't know delete it.
(3) If you receive a virus alert claiming to be from an official government or research organization check out the Symantec's Anti-Virus Center or McAfee's Virus Information Center for verification BEFORE you spread the hoax to others.
How can I tell if my system is infected?
If you are not using an antivirus utility, virus code may be lurking undetected on your hard disk. Some time-delayed viruses show no signs of their presence until they manifest themselves at a particular time or date. The best way to avoid virus infection is to install an antivirus utility and run frequent scans of your hard disk. But if your system is unprotected, there are some symptoms of virus activity to be on the lookout for. Unusual system performance may indicate a virus is at work. Your system may run more slowly than usual, programs may crash unexpectedly, or start exhibiting strange behavior. In the worst cases, directory listings may be garbled or the system may refuse to start. Other symptoms to watch for include changes in the file size or time and date signatures of common system programs.
What preventive measures can I take?
Here are a few basics:
(1) Install an antivirus program that checks files before they are executed.
(2) Disable program features that automatically open e-mail attachments or launch downloaded program files.
(3) Create an emergency boot disk for your PC and write-protect it.
(4) Keep your antivirus program up to date.
Anti-Virus Software Vendors
Symantec - Norton Anti-Virus
McAfee - Virusscan |
P.O. Box 6135 