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From: sfalken@mondo.engin.umich.edu (Steven Falkenburg)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Re: Questioning ethics at computing sites
Message-ID: <0003.9001111702.AA06732@ge.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 10 Jan 90 20:45:06 GMT
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Jeff_Spitulnik@um.cc.umich.edu writes:

[stuff deleted]
>It was apparent from the response,
>that the virus had been here such a short time (a few days?) that no
>one was doing anything yet.  I expected a public announcement of some
>sort informing users that they may be infected and that they run the
>risk of being infected when they use the UM public facilities.  No
>announcement was made.  Furthermore, as a specialist employed to
>preside over a public computing facility (most of the computers are
>Macs), I expected to be both informed that there was a new virus as
>well as instructed what to do about it I heard nothing.  Two weeks
>after the WDEF virus hit UM, most users were still not aware of it.  I
>would forward the message on to the appropriate policy makers if he
>was not in the position to deal with it himself.  I have not received
>a response to my message nor have I heard any public mention of the
>WDEF virus.  Users continue to infect the disks in my lab and be
>infected by the disks in my lab and, as far as I know, other public
>facilities at the Universtiy of Michigan.  The virus persists here.
>  What should be done to rid UM of the WDEF virus or of any virus for
>that matter?  How does the bureaucracy at your institution handle it?
>I question the ethicality of a laissez-faire attitude on viruses at
>any institution.
>
>  Jeff Spitulnik

As a Macintosh support person and programmer for the Computer Aided
Engineering Network at the University of Michigan, I think I should
try to clarify the response by U of M to the WDEF virus crisis.

The University of Michigan has two major computer support
organizations: the Computer Aided Engineering Network (CAEN) provides
support for the Engineering students and faculty, while the U of M
Computing Center (several organizations under the Information
Technology Division) provide computing support to the rest of the
University.

As one of the first sites in the country to be hard-hit by the WDEF
virus, we at CAEN acted immediately by searching out possible
solutions to the virus.  Virtually every CAEN lab mac was infected
(about 160 hard disks).  The virus was first disassembled by a member
of Mac Support, and another employee tailored one of the virus removal
patches (the one written by Juri Munkki (sp)) to meet our needs.  This
vaccine was then installed on all of the lab machines, and copies of
Disinfectant 1.5 were put on the lab software servers.  We then put
notices in the labs and an article in our newsletter.  All of this
action occured within 1 week of our discovery of the WDEF virus, and
we are now protected from it.

I can't speak for the Computing Center's public facilities sites, as
we are in a different unit of the university.  We did give them a copy
of our modified WDEF vaccine, but they chose not to use it, as far as
I know.

In other words, the entire University was not ignoring the problem, as
the previous poster implies.  We believe we now have the tools in
place to deal with new viruses which will inevitably infect our
Macintosh computers.

Steven Falkenburg (sfalken@caen.engin.umich.edu)
Computer Aided Engineering Network
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

[Ed. This again raises an interesting point: how are other
Universities and organizations equipped to respond to and/or prevent
virus infections?  Anyone from groups with policies in place for these
things care to comment?]