Virus Issues

What are viruses?

Viruses are malicious programs which when executed on your computer produce an undesired effect. While this effect may not be noticeable, often viruses delete or corrupt files and incorporate means to spread themselves. Commonly, viruses are spread through email and instant messaging clients.

How do I get viruses?

Viruses can be acquired from many pieces of software, but most commonly they are contracted from infected email messages or downloaded by instant message clients.

Viruses will most often be "attached" to emails that you receive in your inbox. They can come either from people unknown to you in a spam message or from some one you know who's computer is infected with the virus. Once you receive a message containing a virus, it depends on the virus as to how infection of you computer can occur. The most common method is that the virus is attached to the email and the body of the email tells you to open the file. If you do so, you launch the virus and it infects your system. However, it is becoming more and more common for viruses to spread by just reading the email. Just simply clicking on the message to open it in your mail client will execute the malicious code for the virus and it will start inflicting damage.

As for contracting viruses through instant message clients, the methods of contraction vary widely. MSN Messenger (aka Windows Messenger) appears to have more vulnerabilities than the other clients. Usually, viruses are contracted by executing a file downloaded from another IM user, but it is becoming more and more common for viruses to spread mainactively while chatting to someone.

Your responsibilities

As our user, you are responsible for ANY activity coming from your CCPL account. Therefore, it is imperative that you keep your computer free from viruses to preserve fair access for everyone. People who's computers are infected with viruses and spreading them cause the system to slow down for everyone connected. Thus, you are responsible to make sure that your system is free of viruses. If your system is noticed to be sending out virus emails, we will notify you and you MUST remove the virus. Failure to comply with these terms may result in your account being locked or terminated per the Terms of Service Agreement (ToS) in the section marked "Prohibited Uses".

What we are doing now

We have implemented a server-based virus scanning program that scans all email coming from or going outside the CCPL network. Keep in mind that although this scanner does eliminate a vast majority of virus activity on our network, it is not 100% effective. You, as our user are still responsible for any virus activity coming from your account, per the Terms of Service Agreement (ToS).

How do I get rid of viruses?

Your first line of defense is your virus scanning program, which should be operational and up to date (as far as the virus definitions are concerned). Two common programs are Norton AntiVirus External Link and McAfee VirusScan External Link . These programs scan both the files on your computer and also scan incoming and outgoing email to make sure the mail you download doesn't contain any potential viruses.Other things you can do to safeguard yourself against viruses are:

  • Turn off the "preview pane" in your mail client
  • NEVER open any attachments unless you know exactly what they are and who sent them
  • Delete emails that you are wary of or emails that seem suspicious

People who send out viruses often make their emails look like legitimate or mainesting mail, so it is imperative to keep an up to date version of an anti-virus program running on your computer. Also, if someone you know has a computer that is infected, their computer could be sending out emails with their address in the "From:" field. We cannot stress enough having a working and current anti-virus program on your computer.

Some helpful sites regarding viruses are:

What NOT to do

You should under no circumstances take any retaliatory actions against the apparent email address of someone sending a virus. Often the email address of the sender has been forged and your actions will not affect the real person who sent the virus. "Mail bombs" or similar attacks are considered Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and are taken very seriously by our staff. Executing a DoS attack against another server results in a slower connection for everyone and may result in your account being locked or terminated.

For more information

You can search any major search engine for "getting rid of a virus" or a similar phrase.

If you have additional questions about spam, feel free to contact the Help Desk at 410.386.4455 or by email.