Conficker worm attacks U. campus

People and computers get sick in their own ways, but thesolutions to illness are fairly similar -- a good anti-virus.

Early Friday, a worldwide virus known as the Conficker worm waslocated on more than 700 computers at the University of Utah. Thevast majority of infected computers were in the health sciences,including the university's three hospitals, medical school, Collegeof Nursing, College of Pharmacy and College of Health, said ChrisNelson, spokesman for health sciences at the U.

"(The outbreak) means a really big headache," Nelson said.

He assured that private data related to patient records andinformation was secure and had not been affected by the Confickerinfection.

However, the personal data of faculty and staff may have beencompromised, Nelson said. Officials fear the worm may be siphoninglog-in and password information, student data, credit-card numbersand banking information from the machines it infects.

Macs are not affected by the worm.

"Because of how computers are integrated in the health sciences,this area was particularly hard hit," Nelson said. "Most of theinfections we've discovered have been in hospital and clinicpersonal computers provided to the staff."

The university has distributed information to staff members andstudents on how to purge the virus from personal computers andauxiliary equipment such as thumb drives, digital cameras and smartphones, which are other known carriers of the virus. Nelson saidthat information-technology personnel at the university will beworking through the weekend and possibly for the next 30 dayseradicating instances of Conficker.

Nelson said that security personnel were first alerted to thevirus when they noticed "severe" spikes in the Internet trafficflowing in and out of the clinics and colleges. To stop theinsidious flow of data, university officials shut off accessibleInternet travel on the upper campus until the virus was isolated andmaintained. Nelson estimated that the Internet was inactive forabout six hours in some areas.

Security experts say the worm's authors appear to be trying tobuild a big moneymaker, but not a cyber weapon of mass destruction,as many people had feared.

As many as 12 million computers have been infected by Conficker.Spokesmen for Security firm Trend Micro said some of the machineshave been updated over the past few days with fake antivirussoftware -- the first attempt by Conficker's authors to profit fromtheir massive "botnet."

Criminals use bogus security software to extort money. Victimsare told their computers are infected and can be fixed only bypaying for a clean-up, which never happens.

Conficker gets on computers through a hole that Microsoft patchedin October. PCs set up for automatic Windows updates should beclean.

For information on how to scan and clean your home computer,please visit www.secureit.utah.edu

Contributing: Associated Press

E-mail: cnorlen@desnews.com