Update on Conficker C virus and April 1

UPDATE: Thanks to Lon Levy for this article: April Fool's Conficker Threat is Likely Hype. It's true, but just not as dire as reporters would like us to believe. Remember- panic sells papers. Or ads, or electrons, or whatever.

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I have received more questions today about the Conficker C virus thanks to a "60 Minutes" piece last night. Unfortunately, the report was more alarmist than informative.

Here are a couple facts:

• It affects only Windows computers.
  
• It probably won't activate on April 1, because everybody is expecting it.
  
• An infected computer is already receiving instructions from the P2P botnet, so it probably won't drastically change on April 1.
  
• There is now a way to detect infected computers. 

Read more at http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=3043&tag=nl.e539

The practical steps you can take:

1. If you must use Windows, make sure you have automatic updates turned on, and that they are installed. 
2. Use virus protection and make sure it's up-to-date.
3. Turn off your computer when you aren't using it. If it's not on, it can't be infected. Or infect others.  Plus, it will save electricity.

Conficker C virus warning

Our friends at UW-Madison pass along this warning about a particularly powerful and complex virus. We (IT) are looking into our district computers, but owners of Windows computers at home should check for infection as well. It is estimated to have infected millions of computers.

OCIS is aware of increased media coverage of a specific instance of malware, Conficker C, that may have infected many vulnerable Microsoft operating systems.  This malware may have logic set to activate (on already compromised machines) on April 1, 2009. Currently, the full details of what may happen on this date are not known.  However, IT staff should be alert for possible issues.  In addition, IT staff may consider verifying that Windows machines under their control (do not forget virtual ones) have been recently updated as information suggests infected machines may turn off automatic Windows updates. 

More information can be found at the following sites:
In plain English:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/24/conficker.computer.worm/index.html?eref=r

For the technically minded:
http://mtc.sri.com/Conficker/addendumC/

Clarifications on software requests

For clarification on the software request procedure, and answers to some frequently asked questions, please see 
http://sites.google.com/a/oregonsd.net/technology/policies-and-procedures/software-requests (staff login required).

Request your software for 2009-2010

Did you know that industry-wide, 80% of tech incidents are caused by IT making a change? Given that statistic, you might ask why we ever make any changes. The answer, of course, would be to solve a security issue, provide upgrades, or fulfill a software request from staff.

To avoid such problems, we want to streamline our software, and minimize changes. Toward that end, IT has a goal to use a single software image on each computer for each semester. We will begin with this practice in fall 2009. We'll need your help to determine what software is to be installed, so we need you to tell us what software we need. Please submit your requests in an online form at http://bit.ly/request

You can view all the requests submitted so far at http://bit.ly/viewrequests . That way, if somebody else already submitted the same request, you don't have to do it again.

Please note that if you do not request a software application to be installed, it won't be available for the first semester of the 2009-2010 year! You'll have to wait for the semester 2 request window.

Timeouts when Gmail checking Groupwise 2009-03-14

Groupwise has been resetting incoming POP connections from Gmail. This results in Gmail not retrieving all the mail from Groupwiae. The problem started Friday, was fixed Friday evening, but is occurring intermittently today. We are continuing to investigate what is causing POP_Handler10 on Groupwise to stop responding.

Panther really, really slow. 2009-03-12

UPDATE 2009-03-16
One of the hard drives in the SAN died on Friday, 3/14. It is likely that this failure contributed to Panther's slowness earlier in the week as it developed. Reports are that performance is much better today.

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Panther is being agonizingly slow. No, it's not just you. It's taking many people 15-20 minutes to log in. We are actively working on this. All diagnostics look fine, which is really strange. We've called in the "big guns" (read: external consultants) to investigate on a Priority 1 status, so we hope to have it resolved soon.

Further updates will be posted here.