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By Laura Hunt

Your computer—usually so reliable—is suddenly unnaturally slow, yet you return to your office to hear your computer’s hard drive churning away, hard at work. Something is wrong. OIT calls with a diagnosis: Your computer has a virus that is spawning spam by the millions and your Internet connection may have been blocked. What happened?

Like the flu, new computer viruses vary in range and severity. In the past few months, a new generation of computer virus has been making the rounds via e-mail. By opening the e-mail and/or clicking on the attachment, you have activated a “trojan” program that quietly installs itself onto your machine, giving the virus creator almost complete control over your computer. Your computer then becomes a spam relay, or a conduit, through which spam is sent to hide its origin. In its harshest form, the virus can delete random files from your hard disk or make your computer complicit in a “denial of service” attack where your machine inundates a Web site with requests and knocks it offline.

Just like taking vitamins and getting enough rest can protect you from the dreaded flu, there are five main ways to avoid a computer virus:

• Ensure you have current anti-virus software. Free anti-virus software is available for download by UM students, faculty, and staff. Go to www.helpdesk.umd.edu/virus/software.shtml to access McAfee VirusScan software for PCs and Virex anti-virus software for Macintosh systems. It’s easy to install and will keep out most of those unfriendly viruses.

• Do not open attachments you were not expecting to receive—they are often the source of new viruses. Anti-virus software only protects against known viruses. Even automatically updating software does not provide immediate protection. It can take time for solutions to viruses to be created and executed.

• Consider installing a firewall. This security measure creates a protective boundary between your computer and the Internet to prevent unauthorized access. If you have Windows XP, visit www.helpdesk.umd.edu/documents/4/4206 to learn how to enable your firewall. For even more protection, you can also download a firewall for free from Zone Labs by visiting www.zonelabs.com and looking for ZoneAlarm.

• Download anti-spyware to get rid of spyware and other trojans. Spyware can allow open access to your system, which can result in a flood of annoying pop-up ads, privacy invasion, and even the alteration of your files. We recommend the free programs Ad-Aware (www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware), Spy-Bot (from www.safer-networking.org), and Swat-It (from www.swatit.org). If you do use these programs, do so in Windows Safe Mode. Once you’ve got the machine as clean as possible, consider running Windows update (usually an icon in the system-tray at the lower right corner of your screen).

• Practice safe computing. Do not open any unexpected attachments. Be wary of utilities with which you aren’t familiar and peer-to-peer music trading programs, as they can be sources of viruses. It is almost certain you will download dangerous material without your knowledge if you use them.

But what if the worst happens and your computer is infected? What can you do to restore it to health? Turn to the OIT Help Desk (301.405.1500) for assistance. They will point you towards programs designed to correct your problem. In some cases, the solution may require you to format and reinstall your operating system.