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April 13, 2009, 04:29 PM ET
Conficker Infects More Than 700 Computers at U. of Utah
The latest variant of the Conficker worm—sophisticated computer malware that uses the Internet to invade and extract data from computers running Windows operating systems—infected between 700 and 800 computers at the University of Utah, primarily ones belonging to faculty and staff members in the university’s health-sciences center.
Officials at the university are saying that computer-security personnel were able to successfully trap and kill the worm by disabling Web connections campuswide before Conficker could begin exporting sensitive data from the infected computers.
Information-technology staff members noticed Friday morning that their Internet browsers were unusually sluggish, said Phil Sahm, a spokesperson for the health-sciences center. Knowing from recent press reports that the latest variant of Conficker was afoot, they disabled the university’s Web connection and spent the weekend scrubbing infected computers of the worm.
Stephen H. Hess, chief information officer at the university, said that his staff does not believe any data stored on those computers were compromised—and that there is no doubt that personal medical data stored on the clinic computers is safe because those computers do not run the sort of operating system that Conficker preys on.
Mr. Hess said the university’s computer-security staff will continue to monitor the computers for the next few weeks to make sure the worm doesn’t reappear. Meanwhile, the university is investigating how Conficker gained entry to its network.
“I think any time you try to have a collaborative environment when it’s easy for people to get in a and out of a group of machines,” he said, “ that can be kind of an open door for these kinds of worms.”
Douglas Pearson, who watches college networks in his role as technical director of the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center at Indiana University at Bloomington, said in an e-mail interview that he knows of no other widespread Conficker infections at American colleges. –Steve Kolowich
Categories: Security
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