Barrage of e-mail virus warnings leaves wary students confused

During her freshman year, Giselle Woo '02's computer became infected with three viruses that were transmitted over the Internet. By the end of the year, the viruses had done so much damage that she was forced to buy a new laptop.

"It was a very sad situation," Woo said. "I had purchased the laptop through the University for the start of the school year, and I had to get a new one for the following year."

E-mails either containing information about viruses or containing actual viruses, like the ones that struck Woo's computer, are sent around the University continually.

"A lot of people get them," Woo said. "I don't feel like I'm that much of an anomaly."

Friends who know about Woo's computer troubles send her e-mails about new viruses. "I didn't used to heed any of these messages," she said. "But I don't just dismiss them as hoaxes anymore. One of the early messages I received warned me about the Melissa virus, one of the viruses that eventually infected my computer."

While the occasional e-mail actually contains a computer virus, most are simply hoaxes — meaningless warnings about viruses that do not exist.

CIT spokeswoman Rita Saltz said she receives several messages about suspected virus e-mails each week. They usually are titled, "I got this e-mail, how real is it?" Saltz said.

"But, for each one I receive, I project that there are between 10 and 100 virus messages going around campus. Like chain letters, these things go around the world," Saltz said.

These e-mail warnings often are transmitted at an exponentially increasing rate, Saltz said. Every once in a while, she receives a flurry of e-mails from concerned students and staff. The e-mails usually come in bulk — CIT will receive a large batch of virus warning e-mails in the course of just a few days.

"I have received 10 messages so far this month about possible viruses," Saltz said.

When she encounters an e-mail about a suspected virus, Saltz usually does what she suggests students and staff do. She compares the message with several catalogs of virus and prank messages that are listed on CIT's protection Webpage.

"I usually recognize the e-mail, or I compare it with a list of viruses, hoaxes or messages that are bound to contain it," she said.

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CIT maintains a link on its page to Symantec's database — the software vendor of Norton Anti-Virus, a common anti-virus software on campus.

Symantec receives e-mails from cautious Internet users daily, and constantly updates its catalog of known computer bugs. "We have a collection of information about all the computer viruses," said a customer support official at Symantec. The company, however, does not know what percentage of the e-mails that circulate is real and what percentage is fake.

Princeton has been very lucky with viruses. According to CIT, the last major virus on campus — the Chernobyl virus — struck 12 computers during the spring of 1999. "There were probably more computers affected by the virus, but on those 12 computers all the files were lost," Saltz said.

Because of the Chernobyl virus, CIT switched virus protection programs from F-PROT, a freely distributed program, to Norton. "We switched to Norton because it provided a more comprehensive protection for students," Saltz explained.

This fall, there have been a few isolated instances of the Melissa virus but nothing as large as the Chernobyl virus.

Saltz said the best way to prevent viruses from infecting a computer is to constantly update the virus definitions on anti-virus computer programs and to compare the e-mail in question with the databases on CIT's protection page.