A Virus Out of Control

A large private university has over 30,000 students taking online classes. These students
use a variety of systems and network connections. The instructors of this university are
being routinely hit with the Klez32 virus. Klez32 (specifically, in this case, the W32/Klez.
mm virus) is a well-known and documented virus. It uses Outlook or Outlook Express to
spread. It grabs a name randomly from the address book and uses that name in the header.
The worm then uses a mini-mailer and mails the virus to all the people in the address
book. When one of these users opens the file, the worm attempts to disable their antivirus
software and spread to other systems. Doing so opens the system to an attack from other
viruses, which might follow later.
You’ve been appointed to the IT department at this school, and you’ve been directed to
solve this problem. Ponder what you can do about it.
The best solution would be to install antivirus software that scans and blocks all e‑mails
that come through the school’s servers. You should also inspect outgoing e-mail and
notify all internal users of the system when they attempt to send a virus-infected document
using the server.
These two steps—installing antivirus scanners on the external and internal connections
and notifying unsuspecting senders—would greatly reduce the likelihood that the virus
could attack either student or instructor computers.