FEDERMAN@IPFWCVAX.BITNET (02/13/90)
I am posting the story of this incident to VIRUS-L in order to elicit your comments. Has anyone run into a similar circumstance? This week (Feb 5th-9th, 1990) marked the first occurrence of PC computer viruses on our campus. First our Library received the census disk, which we were warned of, and secondly a faculty member was infected by Jerusalem B. I was able to clean-up this system with some effort in about an hour. This was the last thing I did on Thursday afternoon. On Friday, I posted mail to all campus mainframe account holders (most of our campus users since our PC network is just in the beginning phase) about the two incidents, and how to avoid virus infections. In this E-mail message, I was particularly careful not to mention the name or department of the faculty member involved. Well, that didn't work. The faculty member was extremely angry about the E-mail message. I did mention the type of program that was the supposed virus vector. He contended that anyone on campus would figure out his identity from the type of program (fractals), since he was teaching a continuing course on the subject. I won't go into the details of the venom that was directed my way. My questions are these - what should I have done? Kept the infection secret? Are computer viruses a Social Disease? Are we physicians who are supposed to swear some form of Computerized Hippocratic Oath of confidentiality? Or, do we paint a Scarlet-V on the heads(or terminals) of those unfortunate ( careless enough) to become infected? I would like to hear of similar experiences and policies enacted to deal with virus infections. [^^^^^] [^^^^^] [^^^^^] [^^^^^] [^^^^^] [^^^^^] [ ]______[ ]______[ ]______[ ]______[ ]______[ ] [ Alan N. Federman, Computing and Data Processing, Indiana U.-Purdue U.] [ 2101 Coliseum Blvd. E., Fort Wayne, IN 46805-1499 ] [ FEDERMAN@IPFWCVAX <- BITNET (219)481-6199 ] [----------------------------------------------------------------------]