Last year alone, computer viruses caused more than $13 billion in damages worldwide, according to California-based research firm Computer Economics.
Terry Doub, the University’s network security manager, knows the costly effects of viruses all too well. He and his staff of technicians in the Computing Services department oversee the health of computers on the University’s networks.
The latest virus outbreak to affect the University was spread through .zip attachments. It prompted Computing Services to temporarily block all .zip attachments going through its servers.
“Computing Services is being more proactive in protecting the integrity of the LSU network from viruses and worms,” Doub said. “We did not have the virus definitions to catch the virus, so we blocked all zips until we got the definitions installed at our mail gateways.”
Another virus to affect the University’s network in the past year was Sobig@mm. According to Symantec, an Internet security company and maker of the popular Norton Anti-virus software, Sobig@mm spreads using a technique known as “spoofing,” by which the virus randomly selects an e-mail address it finds on an infected computer, then uses this address as the “From” address when it performs its mass-mailing routine.
Scores of other computer viruses are spread through e-mail attachments. Doub warns Internet users not to open any attachments that they were not expecting to get.
Other viruses to impact the University network were MSBlaster.32 and Welchia. According to research done by Computer Economics, MSBlaster caused more than $750 million in damage worldwide last year.
Doub said the University’s Computing Services Department routinely scans the entire network looking for machines vulnerable to security holes. 
“The administrators responsible for these [vulnerable] machines are notified and given a certain amount of time to get the machines patched,” said Doub. “If not patched within the allotted time, the machines are removed from the network until they are patched.”
Anti-virus software is available for University community members to download free on PAWS. Users should check for patches and new virus definitions regularly to make sure their anti-virus software is up-to-date, and their computers are safe from viruses.
“All it takes is a few infected machines to bring down entire segments of the network,” said Doub