A computer worm infected Northwestern’s e-mail server Monday, filling inboxes with corrupted e-mails, Director of Technology Support Services Wendy Woodward said.
NU students received e-mails titled “Your Password” or “Registration Confirmation” with virus-ridden attachments. Only five students reported that they clicked on the attachment, causing their computers to become infected, Woodward said.
“It was very annoying because students received so many e-mails,” Woodward said. “But after we began filtering at the server level, (the number of e-mails) diminished.”
The virus, called Sober, is a mass-mailing worm that sends itself as an e-mail attachment to addresses gathered from the infected computer, according to the Web site for information security firm Symantec. The worm is listed as doing medium level damage to computers, which usually means duplicating and sending itself out to more e-mail addresses, said Dennis Sage, associate director of technology support services.
“It won’t bring the network down or anything,” Sage said. “It tries to grab hold of the computer’s address book and replicate itself.”
Information technology receives 10 to 20 calls per day regarding viruses and spyware, said Mark Reynolds, manager of support services. About 30 calls came in on Tuesday — half of those were concerning the Sober worm, he said.
“Viruses break out all the time,” Woodward said. “It’s not dangerous as long as you don’t click on the link.”
There have generally been more than 1000 infections, Symantec’s Web site said. Sage said the virus is not just impacting NU.
“It is fairly widespread on the Internet,” he said. “If someone at NU is on an infected computer’s e-mail list, it grows from there.”
Sage, who received a couple of the infected e-mails himself, said Symantec software catches and quarantines the virus. But getting the virus can be easily prevented.
“I tell people not to open attachments from people they don’t know,” said Eddie Fonner, Weinberg sophomore and 1835 Hinman residential networking consultant.
Reach Elizabeth Sabrio at [email protected].
