Viruses are spread by running infected programs or by booting from an infected floppy disk. Most viruses simply propagate themselves causing minor inconveniences to the user. Some viruses, however, can damage important data files-sometimes completely erasing hard drives. Without virus protection you can never really be sure that your computer has not been infected. In the last year we have found viruses in a variety of academic departments, some critical administrative departments, and on many disks brought in by students.
Many departments have student workers who have unintentionally infected the office computers.
Most of these viruses were fairly benign, but a couple were particularly nasty, deleting and corrupting many important files. Disinfectant is a freeware application which User Services can distribute to you at no charge. F-Prot Professional is licensed at 12.50 per copy. F-Prot Professional provides excellent virus protection at a low cost. If you own a license for Central Point Anti-Virus, your license will be exchanged at no cost to your department.