The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

Virus-ridden e-mails attack campus offices

In recent weeks, Marquette students and faculty have been receiving e-mails promising to disperse money into their accounts. Sounds like a dream come true, right?

Actually, it's a computer user's worst nightmare. Users may think they are getting money, but what they are really getting is a variation of a virus called "MyDoom."

According to Melody Baker, administrative assistant in the graduate school, the body of the e-mails contains the words, "Congratulations! PayPal has successfully charged $175 to your account."

"It looks like it's giving you free money, so it's very enticing," said Kathy Lang, chief information officer of Information Technology Services.

The e-mails offer a link for recipients to click on, and when they do, their computers automatically download the virus and send spam out to other computers, she said.

"The person who has the virus probably isn't even aware of it," she said.

Christine Robinson, records secretary in the College of Arts & Sciences, said she has been receiving approximately nine of the virus infected e-mails each day.

"One of our advisors received 23 of these e-mails in one day," she said. "But our office knows never to open them."

PayPal is a service used to pay for items bought on Ebay, Lang said.

"From what I can tell, the virus is being spread by e-mail," she said. "It doesn't look like it's being spread through Ebay or PayPal."

Lang said students should be cautious when e-mails contain links and should never open any non-URL links. When e-mails contain links with a specific URL, students should copy the Web site address and paste it in their browsers rather than clicking directly on the link, she said.

On Nov. 10, the campus-wide Internet network collapsed for approximately two hours, according to Martha Jerme, health sciences librarian.

During the outage, Internet browsers could not access any off-campus Web sites, she said. Web sites run by Marquette, such as CheckMarq and MarqCat, were slowed down considerably.

Later that day, ITS issued a warning on its Web site to caution students, faculty and administration about viruses, Jerme said.

Lang said there is no way to tell which virus caused the problem.

From 3:30 to 10 p.m. on Nov. 15, Time Warner Telecom, Marquette's Internet service provider, experienced an "equipment failure" that made off-campus Web sites unavailable and slowed down on-campus Web sites, Lang said.

It was not caused by a virus, and Marquette had to wait for Time Warner Telecom to fix the problem, she said.

Lang said another Internet outage was scheduled from 5 to 6 a.m. this morning to replace more equipment.

Although many computers have been receiving the e-mails containing viruses, the number of infections on campus has been relatively low, said Dan Smith, senior director of ITS.

Smith said he attributes the low rate to up-to-date virus protection software that students and administration have.

Students who suspect their computers may have a virus should run the McAfee software that is available in every dorm, or contact ITS, Lang said.

"The biggest thing students can do is to keep their virus protection software and Windows patches up-to-date, and don't click on anything that looks suspicious," she said.

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