Fast-Moving Virus Hits Campus Computers

More and more Harvard students and Faculty have come to recognize the familiar e-mailed text:

“Hi! How are you? I send you this file in order to have your advice. See you later. Thanks.”

Yesterday, when Lowell House resident tutor James von der Heydt received the e-mail, he did not even open the attachment. He knew it was a virus—one he had already received twice before.

The fast-spreading computer virus called “W/32Sircam” has been flooding the Harvard campus since the summer.

First detected in July, the virus infects Microsoft Windows computers, mailing out the computer’s files and sometimes filling the hard drive, according to the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), the equivalent of the Center for Disease Control for computers.

According to the CERT website, Sircam propagates when e-mail attachments are opened or when the virus copies itself onto unprotected network shares.

It is one of the fastest spreading viruses yet made.

But, according to Kevin S. Davis ’98, coordinator of residential computing for Harvard University Arts and Sciences Computing Services (HASCS), the virus poses little future risk to the Harvard community.

Sircam has “been defeated for a while,” he said, although he admits that the virus will still “spread for a long time.”

Computer viruses remain a potent threat at Harvard, Davis said. At their worst, viruses like NIMDA have the potential to disable the entire network.

“Between one-fifth and one-tenth of user assistant appointments are virus related,” Davis said.

Because the Harvard network is modeled after an Internet service provider and promotes academic freedom, it does not “do any centralized scanning of e-mail or track who gets what messages,” Davis said.

“The flip side means that every user on campus is responsible for themselves,” he said.

Currently about 2,300 students, and only 63 percent of eligible first-years, are running antivirus software. The software is available for free at the HASCS site “antivirus.fas.harvard.edu” or on a CD-rom available at the help desk in the basement of the Science Center.

HASCS is also working to make people more suspicious of e-mails that seem strangely worded and might contain a virus.

“Students should not be lacksadaisical about protecting their work,” Davis said. “We’ve had seniors lose their theses because people aren’t taking care of their own work.”