A virus that attached itself to senior class co-chairman Randy Hannig’s computer infiltrated campus Thursday afternoon in the form of an e-mail sent by Hannig to the class of 2002 listserv.

Updated Norton-Anti Virus software can detect the virus, called w32.klez.e@mm, said Wendy Woodward-King, Northwestern’s associate director for technology support services.

“This is definitely a virus that is hitting campus, and not only listservs,” Woodward said. “But if you keep your software updated, the Norton Anti-Virus system will catch it every time.”

Woodward said Information Technology officials first noticed the virus a few weeks ago, but the file’s ability to change names has made it difficult to track.

Klez is part of a growing computer virus plague on campus. Virus infections jumped from about 30 in March to nearly 80 this month, according to NU’s residential networking Web site. The number of NU computer ports shut down because of viruses rose from about five in March to nearly 40 this month.

Hannig, co-chairman of 2002’s class council, said he received an e-mail around 2:30 p.m. containing a file called height.exe that looked suspicious because it was sent from his own e-mail address. He didn’t open the file, but immediately began receiving calls from listserv members asking why he had sent them the virus.

“The person who sent the virus masked himself as my e-mail address,” said Hannig, adding that he has not updated his anti-virus software since last summer. “The speciality of this virus is that it attaches itself to everyone’s name on a listserv. Unfortunately, this time the listserv was the entire senior class.”

Because Hannig was unable to send further e-mails fearing the virus would be sent out again, Kelly Carter, coordinator for student transitions, informed seniors through the listserv that Hannig’s previous message contained the virus.