New students aren’t the only thing that moved into SU this weekend. The MS Blast worm also came, causing network backups and inconveniences.

CMS distributed copies of the Microsoft Patch to residential advisers Thursday and posted signs warning students to download the patch before plugging into the network. The worm affects only computers with Microsoft 2000 and Microsoft XP.

‘We’re trying to apply the fix before connecting to the Internet,’ said Kevin Bishop, an informative technician for CMS. Bishop got the worm in the middle of downloading the patch.

While there is a sense of urgency when trying to fix the patch, the good news is that damage to personal computers, so far, has been minimal.

‘It doesn’t do a lot of damage. Its purpose is to cause traffic on the network.,’ said Deborah Nosky, a manager of communications and professional development at CMS.

‘It’s more annoying than it is damaging,’ said John Carpenter, a senior mechanical engineering major. It is also annoying especially to CMS employees who were in the residence halls all this weekend trying to patch students’ computers.

A computer with the worm displays an array of symptoms, ranging from severe malfunctioning to almost no sign at all.

‘[A computer] does obvious things, like programs pop up that aren’t supposed to,’ Carpenter said. In other cases, indications that a student has the worm on their computer might not obvious, but its prevalence is almost proof enough.

‘Basically, if you’ve been on a network and your computer isn’t patched, you can assume that you have it,’ Nosky said.

The MS Blast worm is distinct from a virus, Bishop said. The difference between the two lies in the means of transmission. A virus comes in an e-mail, while a worm attacks from network to network, he said.

Nosky and other CMS employees initially had concerns about their progress, however, the numbers proved that, as of Friday, things were operating smoothly.

‘Last year at this time, we had 2,243 students connected to ResNET,’ Nosky said. ‘This year, we already have 3,027 people connected.’

Nosky predicts that approximately 7,000 students will eventually be connected to ResNET.

When Microsoft makes its software, there are always a few glitches.

‘When Microsoft finds a bug in the software, it makes an announcement about it,’ Nosky said. ‘The good guys try find a way to fix it, but there are bad guys who will try to [exploit] it.’

CMS employees are stressing that keeping your computer healthy is as simple as keeping it updated with the latest Microsoft updates, Nosky said.

Problems with the worm aren’t by any means unique to SU.

‘This is everywhere,’ Nosky said. ‘Other universities are dealing with it in other ways, but we are all wrestling with it.’

On Friday, Nosky was optimistic about CMS’s employees progress.

‘If 7,000 [connections] is our goal, given the success with the first 3,000, we expect our success to continue.’

Published on August 24, 2003 at 12:00 pm