University of Exeter shut down its network because of the attack of a virus

The entire network of the University of Exeter in England had to be shut down because of the virus infection the University had suffered on Monday. It is still not clear what kind of malware has done this damage but according to David Allen, Registrar and Deputy Chief Executive of the University, it came through computers running Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 2. The only solution they had was bringing the network offline until the virus will be isolated. Otherwise it could lead to destruction of many files and machines of the university.

The University’s IT team is now planning to scan all computers of the University and even non-University owned Vista PCs (computers of the students who have been connecting to the university’s network). It is strongly recommended the students using Vista PCs not to connect to any networks in order to avoid the return of the virus.
The biggest problem to the University’s IT team to secure effective job are those who don’t care much about the security of communal computer. They enlarge the risk by downloading music, movies, etc. using P2P file sharing application.

One of the biggest issues for the students is that they have no access to The Virtual Learning Environment. This might be a big problem for those who have some assignments to come or some papers to be handed in a short moment as lots of data of the university is now not available. However, the University’s staff promises to be sympathetic to the students and arrange short term extensions to deadlines. The staff assures that this case will be of the utmost importance until everything will be properly fixed.

No one knows how the virus entered the network. One of the versions is that it could have come through the computer of some student or the staff. However, anyone joining someone’s network should now think if they ensure that their computers are properly protected and have no viruses that would affect the whole network.

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