BY CRAIG GILBERT
The best defense against the blaster worm wreaking havoc around the global village is keeping Windows and anti-virus software up to date, according to the head of computer systems at Laurentian University.
Bill Sandblom said the majority of anti-worm activity at Laurentian consisted of crews going out to make sure all the computers on campus had their Windows patches and anti-virus software up to date.
?Some users update on a regular b asis and some don?t,? Sandblom said. ?So we are basically sending out a fleet of technicians to make sure all users are ready for the future.?
Sandblom said once the worm was detected, the ports it used to gain access to the system were closed. With the external sources of the bug cut off, the game became one of containment and extermination.
?It has been a big headache,? Sandblom said. ?It hit us because of the Windows vulnerability and affected a couple hundred PCs. The challenge is to keep everything updated.?
Sandblom?s advice to the common computer user is to simply keep Windows operating systems and anti-virus software up to date. Some systems, he said, are set up to update automatically, but others are not.
?It?s important if they don?t know how to update it that someone with that knowledge can be asked for help.?
As Sandblom said, the blaster worm, known as MSBlast worm, W32/Blaster or W32.Lovsan, exploited a back door Windows developers left themselves.
According to CNN.com, traffic to Microsoft?s TechNet anti-virus site increased by about 1,100 per cent during the week ending Aug. 17. The number of users logging on vaulted from 317,000 to almost four million in that period.
