Charles Morgan and Brian Taylor battle and cure viruses daily at Marietta Memorial Hospital, but neither is a medical doctor.
Think of them more as computer doctors, ridding the hospital’s 450 work station computers of software viruses that can invade and disrupt the entire system.
These small computer programs that create havoc for technology in businesses, schools and homes were dubbed viruses because they share many similarities to the human kind. Computer viruses spread through interaction, mostly across e-mail. Once opened through e-mail, the virus can infect computer files, replicate themselves, create slowdowns and nuisances. They even prove to be deadly to computers, deleting files and formatting hard drives.
And just like their human counterpart, no matter how many computer viruses are found and cured, there seems to be another more sophisticated and sneaky virus on the front.
Most recently, Taylor and the hospital’s technology team spent days eliminating the virus “Klez” from about 20 work station computers.
“There’s no warning, no one knows it’s there until the anti virus finds it,” Taylor said.
The latest e-mail viruses target online address books, gather information and send out infected e-mails seemingly from a friend.
Some viruses use the address book to send e-mails from addresses that are never infected. For example, if John Doe’s computer is infected with a virus, the virus can find Jane Doe’s e-mail in John’s address book. Without interacting at all with Jane’s computer, infected e-mails can be sent seemingly from Jane’s account. This creates confusion in tracking down an infected computer.
Viruses can also be brought in by disk or outside computers.
At the hospital, Morgan said he prohibits most outside software from home and exercises caution with those who bring in laptops and connect to the network.
Charles Paugh, of Marietta, uses e-mail daily at home and work, and constantly looks out for viruses.
“I’m very cautious about e-mails,” Paugh said. “I only open ones up from people I know.” Paugh said he also purchased virus protection programs such as McAfee and Norton Anti-Virus.
Those precautions are the first lines of defense against computer viruses, said Marietta College Director of Information Technology Mahendra Singh. He said the most important defense is to keep those precautions updated.
“My advice would be to download security patches on a regular basis,” Singh said. Windows users should visit Microsoft.com weekly to check for updates. Singh said many viruses seem focused to attack widely used Microsoft products such as Windows, Outlook Express and Word. The company offers free downloadable patches to guard against the viruses. Further virus protection programs also need to be updated frequently online to combat new and ever-changing viruses, Singh said. Both anti-virus programs can be purchased for about $40 to $50. The online updates are free, but many then have a yearly update subscription fee.
Even with safety nets, computers are still vulnerable and the people who create the viruses are finding new ways to fool users and anti-virus programs.The most common e-mail trick is to provide an enticing attachment.
“Sometimes, it comes as a cute little thing, and you open it up just out of curiosity,” Singh said. “Those are the things you have to watch out for. If an e-mail is suspicious, delete it and be done with it.”
But in growing numbers, viruses are hiding themselves in e-mails from anyone, Singh said.
“If you’re my friend, and I see an e-mail from you, I’m probably going to open it,” Singh said. But he, too, warned that sometimes the e-mail is not really from the friend.
Outside computers are a common problem at Marietta College, Singh said. Many students bring the computers from home and even though the network is virus-protected, the unprotected individual computers can spread viruses.
Singh said the college sees anywhere from one to 12 virus problems a month. He said that the school may require students to have anti-virus programs installed on their personal equipment.
A spread of virus hoax e-mails also can create problems, said Michael Popp of Washington State Community College. Popp is an instructor and curriculum specialist at the college’s Computer Application Learning Center. Virus hoax e-mails don’t carry any viruses, but they falsely tell users to delete files on their computers. Once it’s deleted, the computer will crash or suffer problems later on.
“It’s an ongoing, constant battle,” Popp said.
Avoiding computer viruses
* Do not open or run attachments of any suspicious e-mail from a stranger. Delete it.
* Be cautious with any strange e-mails from friends. The friends may not really be the ones sending the e-mail.
* Purchase and run anti-virus software frequently.
* Scan e-mail, Web pages and outside disks with anti-virus programs.
* Do not trust e-mails that advise you to delete computer files.