Apple Archive

Macs, Windows Viruses, and Shutting Down the School Computer Network

- 2003.09.19

In an effort to both increase the computers available to students and provide solutions for in-class activities, my school purchased a cart of laptop computers last year. A wireless network was also added, giving anyone using these laptops - or our own personal laptops - the ability to access the network. I'd been using my PowerBook on the Internet frequently via the school's network, as did several others.

Unfortunately, the computer network at school was infected in the middle of this month with the Nachi/Welchia worm, a Blaster variant that infects Windows 2000/XP and overloads the network with traffic. This meant the entire school network was down for a whole day.

Keep in mind that the computer is used not only to let students type and access the Internet, but also to take attendance and demonstrate material in class. It's also used to keep track of schedules and who is leaving early and at what time. As you can probably imagine, a day without the computer network was a disaster.

It wasn't fixed in a day either. Each computer in the school had to be virus-checked before it could be allowed back on the etwork. Since they were worried that personal laptops might be infected, or could get infected (the virus isn't 100% gone yet), as of right now they've closed that part of the network. This, of course, makes it a challenge to print documents from my machine.

Now for the big question that seems like it's been going around: Are Macs immune to viruses?

I'll put it this way: The last copy of Anti-Virus software I had on my Mac was Symantec Anti-Virus for Macintosh (SAM) 4.0 - after the name had been changed to Norton AntiVirus for Mac. I never actually bothered to get an updated version. I have never had a virus, and I assumed that I probably wouldn't get one - but that doesn't mean that Macs are absolutely immune, although the few viruses around for Macs are not as serious as those for PCs.

While I know of no Mac viruses that actually destroy the motherboard, there have been PC viruses that infect the BIOS, rendering the computer useless. The only thing Macs can do with current viruses is pass them from one PC to another through email attachments - without the Mac actually getting infected. And Mac users have to manually forward those email attachments, since Macs don't have the gaping security holes that allow Windows computers to automatically distribute viruses.

This is the main reason why one might have an antivirus program installed on a Mac - to scan email attachments.

Since OS X is bringing the Mac and Unix close together, there is a growing likelihood that viruses will start appearing for OS X. Right now the main antivirus solution for OS X seems to be Virus Barrier, which I have heard some good things about, although I haven't used it myself.

What would have happened if my school had only had Macs on the network? Probably nothing. Everything would be functioning fine - but in the "real world" not everyone uses a Mac (and if 90% used a Mac, we might have a mass virus problem for Macs, too).

At this point I guess the best thing they can do is clean out each system and hope that not all files are lost. I'm glad that my PowerBook is immune to this particular worm, and I won't have to erase anything.

Let's just hope Mac viruses will continue to be few and far between.

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