The Help Desk » Protecting your computer from Viruses and Worms

Protecting your computer from Viruses and Worms

& Anti-Virus Software

Please note that campus-owned computers already have Symantec AntiVirus installed, and they receive updates from a central server every morning. The process of installing and updating Symantec AntiVirus only applies to personal (non CC-owned) computers.

Colorado College provides Symantec AntiVirus (SAV) to all employees and students free of charge for both work and home/personal computers. The College’s software license allows students, faculty and staff to install SAV on only one personal computer. You should uninstall your existing anti-virus software before installing this program.

Symantec AntiVirus for Windows 2000/XP: I Agree to Install Only One Copy (30 MB download)
Symantec AntiVirus for Windows Vista (32 bit version): I Agree to Install Only One Copy (30 MB download)
Symantec AntiVirus for Windows Vista (64 bit version): I Agree to Install Only One Copy (30 MB download)
ClamXAV for Mac OSX (Including X.5 Leopard): Click Here to download (20 MB download)
Symantec AntiVirus for Mac OSX (Including X.5 Leopard): I Agree to Install Only One Copy (40 MB download)
- Note: When prompted for your username and password, type in your username as follows: “coloradocollege\username” and then your CC password as follows:

*** TIP: We highly recommend you configure Symantec AntiVirus to run Live Updates automatically so that your computer will take care of updating itself. It’s quick and easy to set up - Click Here for instructions. Note that this only applies to personal (i.e. non Colorado College owned) computers.

Note: both programs are aslo availabe on our shareware network volume (\\student1\shareware). See “How to map a network drive” for more information.
Please contact the Help Desk (x6449) for any help with these instructions.

After you’ve downloaded SAV from the link above, select “Open” and then accept all the default options for installation. Once it’s done installing, reboot your computer. After it starts back up, you should notice a yellow shield in your systray (lower right corner of your screen, it looks like this: ) which indicates your computer is protected. If you think you may have a virus on your computer, you should run a full system scan. Click Here for instructions. If that fails to work, then Click Here for instructions on running a scan in Safe Mode.

& Email Viruses
As a rule, you should not open email attachments from anyone (even friends) unless you either were expecting the attachment or can first perform a virus scan on it. Sometimes, though infrequently, even just opening an email message can trigger a virus. Delete suspicious messages immediately - don’t try to save them or forward them.

Many new email viruses use the rather nasty trick of “spoofing” the reply address, meaning they fake who really sent the message. You might get a virus message that looks like it came from a friend, or your friend might get a virus that looks like it came from you, without either of you having actually sent it. Because Colorado College employs three levels of virus protection (Postini, which filters viruses before they reach campus; virus protection loaded on our on-campus servers; Symantec AntiVirus loaded and updated on your personal computer), it’s very unlikely that you actually sent a virus out.

Finally, to check the authenticity of a virus warning (many warnings, like the jdbgmgr.exe message, are just hoaxes), check Symantec’s online virus database at:

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/vinfodb.html

Last revised on 08/22/08