Information Services Newsletter
Has Your Network Access Stopped?

Has your network access stopped? Can you no longer access the Internet or email from your office PC? Then you may have been blocked by ISD. ISD are currently blocking network access to PCs that are infected with viruses and worms and also PCs that are running Kazaa.

Since the summer computer viruses and worms have disrupted the University infrastructure as they try to propagate themselves by scanning the network in search of other computers to infect. To try and prevent the spread of these viruses, any infected PCs discovered by ISD's monitoring program will have its network access blocked until the PC has been cleaned.

These viruses access PCs via vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system. To prevent your PC from being infected, the operating system should be patched on a regular basis. You should also install and keep up to date an anti-virus program. The latest versions of Windows can be configured to automatically download and update patches for the operating system. Anti-virus software can be configured to automatically update it definition files. Where supported, these features should be set. Any users who have not patched their PCs or do not have anti-virus software installed should do so now. Contact your faculty support technician if you need assistance on patching your PC or configuring anti-virus software.

Users with laptop PCs should pay particular attention to patching their laptops and keeping anti-virus software up to date. The latest batch of viruses were introduced into the University infrastructure by laptops that were infected at home and then used on campus.

Kazaa is a peer-to-peer program used to download files. Most of this usage appears to be for the copying of music and DVD files from the Internet. The use of this or similar programs for this usage is in breach of copyright law and the University's Acceptable Use Policy. This program uses a large amount of network bandwidth to download these files. This is a waste of University resources. PCs found to be running this program will have their network access blocked. Unless you can prove you are using this program for legitimate University business, Kazaa will need to be removed before your access will be re-enabled.

Harry Young