Like George Mason, U.Va. also had far fewer issues with student PCs this year, with the majority of virus and worm infections found on older computers belonging to upperclassmen. This year, U.Va. quarantined at least 75 student PCs infected with the Blaster worm, the same digital contagion that infested nearly 1,400 computers at the school last year at move-in time.
Shirley Payne, director of security coordination and policy at U.Va., credits the relative ease of this year's registration process to frequent communication with the students over the summer about the school's computer security requirements. Still, she said, the new security measures were necessary because far too many students tune out such advice.
"At every opportunity we've had this summer to talk with students, we've made security a top issue," Payne said. "Even so, a lot of people here realized that our student population just wasn't listening to some of the things we've been saying about security for years."
School administrators at Howard University in Washington, D.C., are taking a more hands-on approach this year, requiring all students to drop off their desktop or laptop computers at the school's technology center, where the PCs are scanned for viruses and spyware, equipped with a firewall, and set up to receive the latest Microsoft security patches.
The school has treated about 475 student PCs and scheduled another 2,000 machines to be processed by the end of the month. University technicians have been able to process most student computers in less than 32 hours, said Charles Moore, Howard's interim vice provost and chief information officer.
"We realize this process could take some time, but we took a good look back at our experience last year and decided we absolutely needed to put in place as many tools as we could to make sure we're prepared to handle any outbreak," Moore said. He added that spyware is by far the biggest problem this year: more than 60 percent of student PCs inspected so far were laden with hidden software programs that slow computer performance and Internet connections.
"The students really appreciate the work we're doing here, because in most cases their computers are performing better after we're finished cleaning all the spyware and viruses off," he said.
The University of Maryland Baltimore County also had a much easier time this year registering its 3,800 student computers on its network. Last year, more than a quarter of student PCs were infected with viruses or worms at move-in time.
UMBC chief information officer Jack Suess said he's confident the school now has the tools in place to weather another virus outbreak like Blaster without serious problems. Still, he admits that the school's new security measures haven't yet been put to the test.
"I want to say that a lot of our success this year is due to our hard work on security over this past summer," Suess said. "Unfortunately, the logical part of me says that the bigger reason is that there hasn't been a major Internet threat that so far this school year."
