Mississippi State University Information Technology Services has invested in a software site license agreement for Symantec (Norton) AntiVirus Corporate Edition (SAV). This license agreement allows MSU students, faculty and staff to download, install and get updates for this antivirus program on both university and personally owned Macintosh and Windows computers.
According to Dr. Matt Raven, director of ITS, computer viruses and worms can “wreak havoc” on individual computers and even affect the entire campus network.
“They (viruses) can do a variety of things,” Raven said. “One of the main things they can do, if your machine gets infected with a virus, is make it run slower and get sluggish or even stop working. Some viruses can cause security breeches. Some can even create spoof e-mail and send it from your system to spawn itself that way.”
For this reason, Raven said it was important never to open an e-mail attachment if the source is unknown.
“Viruses can also wipe out files,” he continued. “Some can actually go into your hard disk and replace all your multimedia files with copies of itself. So all of your picture files, movie files or music files end up deleted.”
The SAV software provides protection against current viruses and worms and also allows users to download updates on a daily or weekly basis. Updates allow the program to remain capable of protecting against new viral intruders as they are released. Raven said it is important to keep the program updated.
“It’s really important to know that students are commonly mistaken about this,” Raven said. “They think they have antivirus software on their computer, but they don’t. When they buy a computer, they will often get an antivirus program with a six-month trial. After the trial runs out, they stop updating against the latest viruses.”
Raven said many viruses can travel through the campus network and infiltrate many computers. MSU has faced some of the most destructive viruses to hit the Internet, including the Klez worm, the Nimbda virus and the Sircam worm.
“One of the main reasons we went ahead and secured this university-wide license is that we’ve had so many problems being spread around campus,” Raven said. “We’ve extended the license to students because they have been a large part of the problem; many students aren’t running any sort of antivirus software on their computers.”
The software is available and can be installed or downloaded from the main ITS Web page at www.its.msstate.edu by following the link “Symantec AntiVirus Install/Download.” Before obtaining the software, students, faculty and staff will be required to authenticate by entering their NetIDs and Banner PINs. They will also be required to agree to the terms and conditions of the license.
As part of the agreement, ITS has also acquired the “Symantec Antivirus for SMTP Gateways” software which provides the ability to scan for and remove viruses from e-mail. ITS will be rolling this capability out over the next several weeks with an ultimate goal of being able to protect all MSU systems from e-mail-borne viruses.