Wheaton Institutional Computer Virus Practice
Viruses from both off campus and on campus continue to be a serious problem on the Wheaton network. Information Technology and Services (IT&S) becomes aware of an infected computer when it begins to attack the college's servers and staff workstations.
If you allow your computer to become infected you put your files, your computer, and the college's infrastructure at risk. While many viruses are more annoying than damaging, some are designed to erase all of the contents of your hard drive or designed to destroy computer memory that effectively prevent the computer from being used.
The most resent spate of viruses turn individual computers into email servers that replicate themselves and send large amounts of traffic on to the campus network, attempting to flood the Internet.
Wheaton has installed central virus protection software and negotiated a license with NERCOMP and Microsoft to provide network based, virus protection for every member of the college community. If you need assistance in acquiring or setting up the campus licensed software, please contact the Support Center at X3900 or support@wheatonma.edu
As well, spyware has recently become an increasingly destructive problem for institutional machines. In general, spyware is any technology that aids in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge. On the Internet, spyware is programming that is put in someone's computer to secretly gather information about the user and relay it to advertisers or other interested parties. Spyware can get in a computer by innocently visiting a commercial web site, as part of a software virus or as the result of installing/downloading a new program from the Internet. You are not very likely to become infected with spyware by doing your job or visiting web sites that are connected to your Wheaton work.
Spyware can steal information that is stored on your hard drive and send it to anyone it wants to without you ever knowing! Which means potentially valuable Wheaton information can get sent to commercial enterprises without your knowing it. It can also interrupt your network connections and slow down the performance of your computer.
Any staff or faculty computer that is found to be infected with a virus or with disruptive spyware, may be removed from the Wheaton network immediately See network blocking practice at:
http://www.wheatoncollege.edu/IT_S/projects/Home.html
In these cases, the Support Center will be informed and will work with the individual responsible for that machine to ensure that it is cleaned and returned to service as soon as possible.
All institutional computers on the campus network have anti-virus software installed and configured to update regularly. In addition, the institutional computers running Microsoft Windows operating system are configured to update themselves automatically. You are not allowed to alter these settings on institutional machines.
If you have any questions or need assistance with your computer, contact the Support Center at x3900.