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IT Services
Contact information: Helpdesk - IT guidance Office: |
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Viruses and malicious programs
The threat of viruses might seem distant to an ordinary user, but the CIH-epidemic of spring 1999 proved otherwise, disrupting hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide. Virus prevention measures are pre-emptive actions that may seem futile as long as everything is fine. However, neglecting virus prevention may result in extensive damage to your files and computer, so the matter is best taken seriously. IT Services virus prevention measures have two primary components: 1. Workstation virus prevention Our goal is that all workstations for University students and staff have fully functional and updated virus prevention software. University of Helsinki has acquired a campus license for F-Secure Anti-Virus software. In addition anti-virus software from Symantec is available for the university departments and staff. Added to this all important NetWare servers have virus prevention software, which scans their hard drives every day, including the home folders of university students, every day. Depending on the server software from F-Secure or Symantec (Norton) is used. 2. E-mail virus prevention We also have software monitoring the email traffic. Interscan VirusWall from Tren Micro is scanning all incoming email. With incoming email we mean all email circulating within the university. Recent developments on the virus front have made this part of the virus prevention effort especially important. Right ways of action Although anti-virus software is the backbone of virus prevention, there are some simple precautions users can take in order to protect themselves from viruses. The most important of these are caution and common sense in opening file attachments coming with strange and unexpected emails. It is also important to avoid using software from dubious sources (pirated or otherwise). Unexpected email with obscure titles is to be classified as suspicious even if it is from people you know. Nowadays macro viruses are not so common. Still, an approved way to impede them from spreading is to send your texts saved as rtf (rich text format) files (instead of using the doc format). Read more about viruses and security Links
Check also ICT Learning Material on viruses and malware. 29.06.2010 |
