Changes to your computer - Anti-Virus

No doubt you are familiar with the problems departmental computers have had with virus attacks in the past. With the failure of Sophos to protect our computers, we have been testing new anti-virus software to protect our Windows based computers.* This software is called eTrust from Computer Associates. eTrust is a combination of InnoculateIT and Vet anti-virus.

It has several advantages over Sophos:

1. It works.
2. It deals much better with trojans such as Nimda because it will instantly delete any infected files and will even disable itself to prevent further infection.
3. Updates occur every 4 hours.
(Every 4 hours CHEMWEB, our web server, connects to the Computer Associates web site and checks for updates. These are then downloaded and passed onto two other servers. Every 4 hours client machines will connect to one of these three servers and update themselves. This way we can ensure that out anti-virus software is always up-to-date. This process occurs automatically as long as the machine remains connected to our network.)
4. It is much easier to install and configure.

The department will purchase eTrust for an initial two years. The roll out of the software to departmental computers will occur very soon. During this time it will be necessary to come around to each machine to uninstall any previous AV software and install eTrust. At the same time other changes may be made to your machine including;

Hardware Audit
Scan for previous viruses
Domain logon to Chemistry0
Update NT Service patches
Update Internet Explorer
Update user profiles.

Where the machine is found to be badly infected with something like Nimda, the only real solution is to salvage as much data as possible and then wipe the hard disk with a new software image.

Please note: All computers that connect to the Department of Chemistry's network must have up-to-date anti-virus software installed. In the case of machines owned by the Department, or machines that spend the majority of their useful time connected to the department's network, we will install eTrust anti-virus and configure that software to be regularly updated by the Department's servers.

In the case of machines (such as personal laptops) that only occasionally connect to the network, or machines that connect via dial-up, please ensure that your machine is protected by up-to-date AV software. The department has purchased several extra licenses to ensure some regular dial-up users are protected with eTrust. For others, there are a couple of anti-virus software packages that are free for personal home use, feel free to enquire about these.

* This covers 32 bit Windows Operating Systems (Windows 95,98,ME,NT4,NT5,XP). It does not cover DOS, Windows 3.xx, Macintosh (Which will continue to use Virex) or UNIX based systems.