SelfHelp: Viruses and Malware
Viruses, spyware, adware, and other types of malware are a growing problem. Although Information Systems does not have the resources to clean up every student computer, we want to provide resources to help students deal with common problems.
Your choices for dealing with viruses and popups/spyware/malware are as follows:
Option 1: Use the resources provided in
these pages to solve the problem.
(FYI: These pages are targeted at Windows users, since viruses
and malware are currently almost non-existant for the Mac
OS.)
Viruses
Stay Informed
Keep up to date with virus information and warnings at Viral Pandemonium.
Installing Sophos
If Sophos Anti-Virus is not installed on your computer, you can install it by following these directions. Be aware that if you have any other anti-virus software installed it must be removed before you can install Sophos. Some common anti-virus programs are Norton, McAfee, and PC-Cillin. If you need to remove current anti-virus software, use Add/Remove Programs, which can be found in the Control Panel.
Removing Viruses
When Sophos detects a virus, you will recieve a notifiction popup with information about the virus including the name and where it was found. Please write down the full name of the virus. This makes the Help Desk's job much easier if you end up needing to contact us for help.
If the virus name begins with W32, W95, W98, or W2K, please contact the Help Desk, as these viruses are difficult to remove and the Help Desk will either give you further instructions on dealing with the virus or have you bring it in to be worked on.
For all other viruses follow these instructions for removal.
Cleaning Up Malware, Popups, Spyware, and Adware
Step 1: Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Microsoft Anti-Spyware (Beta)
Ad-aware, Spybot Search & Destroy, and Microsoft Anti-Spyware are great tools for cleaning the various types of malware and adware off your computer. To get your computer as clean as possible, we strongly recommend using two of these programs.
Spybot Search & Destroy installation and use
Microsoft Anti-Spyware installation
Step 2: Internet Explorer 911
It is very easy for Internet Explorer to become infected with malware that generates popups or other strage activity. These will not always be detected by Ad-aware/Spybot. Follow these instructions to clean out your Browser Host Objects and Downloaded Program Files.
We also recommend the use of the Mozilla Firefox web browser as an alternative to IE. Firefox can be downloaded here.
Prevention
Windows Update
Keeping Windows up to date is one of the best ways to help keep your computer running well. If a bubble ever pops up in the lower right of your screen telling you that there are new updates to download or install, you need to click it and then click Download or Install. As of the Fall of 2005, Information Systems requires Windows XP computers to have Service Pack 2 (SP2) installed.
If you want to verify that Windows is up to date on your computer, visit Windows Update.
To make sure that Windows updates itself automatically on Windows XP (SP2)/2000 only, follow these instructions.
If you have Windows 98, be sure to run Windows Update and install Critical Update Notification from the Windows 98 section.
Windows Firewall
We highly recommend that you enable the Windows Firewall to help protect your computer. Follow these instructions to turn on the firewall.
Stopping Popups
The Google Toolbar is an excellent way to stop popups in Internet Explorer. Firefox is designed to block internet pop-ups and does not need this toolbar unless you prefer it.
