Anti-Virus Software/SOPHOS Viruses are a constant threat to the college's computing infrastructure. Thanks to our SOPHOS desktop/server virus protection, and our ANTIGEN email virus protection, BC has escaped the scourge of many major virus epidemics that have plagued other organizations throughout the world. Sophos may not be a familiar name to you because, unlike Norton and McAfee, Sophos markets its product to corporate customers only, so you will not find it pre-installed on a personal computer purchased at retail. However, Sophos has been in business for many years and its software is designed to work in large networked environments such as we have here at the college. The software uses a combination of virus scanning and checksumming to minimize the number of times each file needs to be virus-checked, thus minimizing impact on computer and network performance. Heuristic capabilities built into the software allow the detection of virus variants that have not yet been analyzed by the Sophos (or other) labs. You can learn more about Sophos at http://www.sophos.com. SOPHOS protection is only as good, however, as its last update. We have implemented a new, fully-automatic remote update method and we strongly recommend that you install it as quickly as possible. The SOPHOS upate program checks for vital updates every hour to insure that your computer is as well protected as possible. Sophos Anti-Virus is available to staff and faculty for use on home computers. Reducing Windows Vulnerabilities that Viruses exploit: Windows Critical Updates Unfortunately, all complex operating systems have security flaws that are often exploited by hackers and viruses. This is especially true of the Microsoft Windows operating systems. Therefore, it is critical that you keep your computer Operating System up to date with all published security patches and updates. To set up Automatic Installation of Windows Critical Updates for Windows 98, click here. What are Computer Viruses? A virus is a program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without your knowledge and runs against your wishes. Viruses can also replicate themselves. All computer viruses are created by people. Even a simple virus is dangerous because it will quickly use all available memory and bring the system to a halt. A more dangerous type of virus is capable of transmitting itself across networks and bypassing security systems. Virus Hoaxes & Chain Letters Hoaxes usually arrive in the form of an e-mail and contain bogus warnings often intended only to frighten or mislead users. Hoax messages try to get you to e-mail them to everyone you know. Chain letters have the same purpose as hoax messages but use a slightly different method of coercing you into passing them on to everyone you know. Chain letters generally offer luck or money if you send them on and play on your fear of bad luck. Chain letters that deal in money are illegal no matter what they state in the letter. Probably the biggest risk for hoax messages is their ability to multiply. Mail servers may not have the capacity to handle the volume of messages and may slow down to a crawl or crash. Please disregard hoax and chain letter e-mail.. The best course of action is to simply delete them. Virus Protection at BC Viruses are typically spread by opening certain file types such as executable or command files. These files usually end with either an .exe or .com extension and can be spread via e-mail attachments. BC has three levels of virus protection: All e-mail sent to anyone whose e-mail address ends in "@brooklyn.cuny.edu" is automatically checked for viruses before arriving at your desktop. Suspicious e-mail attachments are quarantined for three days before forwarding. If e-mail with a known virus is detected on the BC E-mail Server, the attachment is deleted and replaced with a harmless text file. Your e-mail message will alert you that the malicious file has been replaced. Anti-virus software is installed on all computers. Anti-virus programs can detect and remove viruses on your desktop. Virus Prevention While all e-mail sent to anyone @booklyn.cuny.edu is scanned, viruses can still get through. E-mail from 3rd party e-mail accounts (Hotmail, MSN, Yahoo, etc.) that are checked on campus via web browsers can contain viruses. Viruses can also come from opening email attachments via Usenet news groups or listservs. Therefore, we recommend checking e-mail from these accounts off campus, and scanning any disks brought from home or third party applications not supported by the college.