Student
Virus Problems Down!
by Roberta Lembke
September has traditionally been a most stressful time for IIT staff and the student body as the students attempt to connect their computers to the campus network. Last year the campus was inundated with student virus problems. In September of 2004, over 220 students had their computers disconnected from the network due to virus and/or spyware infections. This created a very stressful situation for both the students and the IIT staff.
IIT staff worked over the winter to develop a new approach to the problem. Instead of reacting to the problems, we turned our approach to a pro-active strategy. We develop an informational campaign targeting two audiences, the returning students and the first year students.
All first year students received an IIT CD in their summer “Destination St. Olaf" binder. The CD contained directions for preparing their computers to come to St. Olaf and included software (Symantec Anti-Virus and other tools) they were asked to install prior to coming to campus. For the upper class students we e-mailed a note to them during August that contained directions on what steps they should take before arriving on campus.
This new strategy worked incredibly well and September 2005 will probably go on record as being one of the least stressful starts to a new academic year for student computing. During September, only 25 (0.8% of the entire student body) students had their computers disconnected from the network due to virus or spyware infections. Of those 25, only two (0.07%) were new students! We would like to thank all of the students who followed the steps and helped keep virus problems in check.
While we met with success in September, we realize that we need to continue to be aggressive in our efforts to contain viruses and spyware on campus. Throughout the year, watch your mailbox for updates on the latest threats or reminders about checking your “automatic updates” for Windows, virus definitions, etc.
Have you seen this notice?
When you see this message, please click on the pop-up message bubble
and follow the prompts to install the updates. In some cases a reboot
is required to make the patches effective. Installing these operating
system updates is a quick and easy way to make sure you don't get infected
with a virus or get disconnected from the network.
Now is also a good time to check your anti-virus software and spyware and ad-ware software for updates. Instructions for doing so can be found in the Five Steps for Healthy Computing.
Automatic Installation of Windows Updates
By the end of 2005, IIT will begin automatically installing Windows updates to all college-owned PCs. Currently, updates are only installed automatically on lab and classroom computers.
Since we began distributing Windows updates about two years ago, users of faculty and staff computers have been prompted to install the updates when they become available. While this practice has minimized the disruptions the update process can cause (some updates require rebooting the computer), we have found that some users are not installing the updates in a timely manner. This leaves computers potentially vulnerable to security flaws.
Later this fall, IIT will change the way faculty and staff PCs are updated. Instead of downloading the updates and prompting the user to install them, the updates will be downloaded and installed automatically. If a reboot is required, the user will be prompted to save any open files and restart the computer. Lab and classroom computers will continue to be updated automatically.
We are still finalizing the details of this process. As we get closer to implementing these change we will notify faculty and staff via e-mail.
Internet Connection Upgraded and Internet2
In late September, IIT completed a network upgrade that links St. Olaf College to the Twin Cities with a fiber-optic connection. This allowed IIT to more than double the amount of commercial Internet bandwidth from last year (from 9mbps up to 20mbps) and to connect to Internet2 (www.internet2.edu), a high-speed network used for connecting research and educational institutions. Currently, our Internet2 bandwidth is 45mbps, but will soon increase to much more.
|
||||||||||
|
|