Guidelines for Reducing the Spread of Computer Viruses Through E-Mail

By Terry Hawthorne

The principals of each Smyth County School recently received guidelines for reducing the spread of computer viruses through e-mail. We are reprinting the guidelines here and offering some additional explanations of why they are needed.

During December, 2001, we experienced a serious virus outbreak at one school that resulted in some of the school's student information database files being infected with a damaging virus. We were able to recover the student data files without losing any information, but it took about six hours of work to clean up the virus. To prevent these kinds of incidents in the future, all school board employees should adhere to the following guidelines:

1. If you receive an e-mail attachment that does not pertain to your work for the school, please delete the e-mail and attachment. Do not open the attachment.
2. If you receive an e-mail attachment that does pertain to your work for the school, please contact the sender of the e-mail to verify that it is a legitimate message and attachment, and not one generated by a virus on the sender's computer. Don't be misled into thinking that an e-mail attachment is safe because it comes from someone you know. In fact, e-mail viruses will almost always come from someone you know or with whom you have exchanged e-mail.
3. If you cannot contact the e-mail sender and it is important to open the e-mail attachment, analyze the message content before opening the attachment. If the message contains specific information about a school-related issue and refers to the attachment, the attachment is probably safe to open. If the message is generic, please delete the message and the attachment. Examples of generic messages include: "Please take a look at this."; "I need your advice on this."; and "This is very important. Please review it and get back to me."
4. Don't rely on your computer's anti-virus software to catch e-mail viruses. Several new viruses are discovered every week and your anti-virus software will not catch these viruses.
5. If you receive e-mail messages that warn of a dangerous virus being transmitted and urge you to search your computer for a specific file and delete it, ignore the message. Please do not forward it to anyone. These messages are hoaxes that are designed to:
   1. Clog up e-mail systems by getting people to forward the warning to as many people as possible; and
   2. Get unsuspecting users to delete files that are actually needed by their computer to operate.

Computer Virus Question and Answers

Q. The icons on my desktop screen jump around whenever I attempt to click on them. Does this mean I have a virus?

Yes--"jumpy icons," but only on odd-numbered days, are symptomatic of the virus that we discovered in December. This virus is transmitted by e-mail. It will attempt to spread itself by sending e-mail to people with whom you have exchanged e-mail in the past. This virus also may overwrite random files on your computer with junk data and damage your computer's BIOS (the built-in program that runs when the computer is turned on).

Q. What should I do if I think my computer has a virus?

Disconnect the network cable and complete a work order to have the computer's hard drive scanned for viruses. Don't send e-mails to people warning them that previous e-mails from you may have contained a virus, because some recent viruses will also infect actual e-mails you write.

Q. I have Norton Antivirus, or McAfee, or some other anti-virus software. Isn't my computer safe?

No. Anti-virus software detects and eliminates viruses by relying on virus "definitions"; if you don't have the latest virus definitions, your anti-virus software will miss most of the newer viruses. Since several new viruses are released every week, you would have to update your anti-virus software every day to stand a fighting chance of detecting all of the new viruses.

Q. Do these guidelines apply to students?

School Board policy does not allow students to check e-mail at school, unless they have the permission of their principal for academic purposes. Students who have received permission to check e-mail must abide by these guidelines.

Q. Do these guidelines apply to Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and other Web-based e-mail accounts?

Yes.

Q. Isn't there a way to catch these viruses before they get to our computers?

Yes. This is called e-mail gateway scanning. It involves setting up filters on our e-mail server that will delete attachments that could contain viruses, as well as scanning incoming mail for viruses. Our first attempt to do this resulted in an e-mail server that refused to transfer mail, but we are still working on this solution.

If you have additional questions about these guidelines, please contact Terry Hawthorne  or read this document on the School Board's Web site. www.scsb.org/email_viruses.htm.