UpDate - Vol. 14, No. 32, Page 11
May 18, 1995
TechTalk
The data-eating virus scenario...

     Adam and six other graduate students work on several research
projects with their advisor, Prof. H. All the grad students
collaborate on data collection and data analysis. Since there are only
two computers for them to share in the lab, it is not uncommon for
them to share data diskettes and work in a University computing site
or at one another's apartments.
     One afternoon, Prof. H. asks the students to prepare a grant
proposal and presentation for an upcoming meeting.
     "We'll make it really catchy," Adam promises as he borrows Prof.
H.'s laptop computer.
     That Friday, Yvette, one of the other students, asks Adam if he
knows anything about computer viruses. "No, not really," Adam replies.
Yvette tells him how the diskettes she used that morning in a
computing site all showed up as infected. "Can't be too bad if you got
your work done," Adam tells her as they leave for lunch.
     When Yvette and Adam return to the lab, they find the other
students arguing about who accidentally deleted some of the data
files. "No problem," Adam says. "I have copies of those files on H.'s
laptop." He sticks a diskette in the laptop and copies the data. The
students reload the data onto the other computers.
     The next Tuesday, H.'s secretary calls Adam at home. "Better get
in here. H. is really hot because some of the lecture notes on his
laptop are missing and others are jumbled."
     When Adam arrives, he finds Yvette on the phone with a repair
company. "Sometimes it can't even find the C drive," she says. She
listens for a moment and says, "Yeah, we've had some files get messed
up, too. Let me check." She covers the mouthpiece and asks Adam if he
knows what anti-virus software the lab is running. Adam shrugs. He is
preoccupied because he can't find his presentation files nor Prof.
H.'s lecture notes anywhere on the laptop.
     "The repair guy says we should have made backup copies of our
data and have been checking for viruses on all our computers," Yvette
says, as she hangs up the phone.
     "We're doomed," Adam sighs.


What you should know:

* As soon as Yvette reported that some of her diskettes were infected,
  the entire group should have scanned all their systems and any
  diskettes they had used recently.
* Two simple things could have prevented this disaster:
   - Installing and using virus protection software on all the systems,
     including Prof. H.'s laptop.
   - Instituting a regular procedure for backing up data files, lecture
     notes and all other documents stored electronically.
                                                       -Richard Gordon