Facebook virus

Derika Downing
Critic Staff

Warning email from Dente explained.

If you checked your email this week, you probably received an email from LSC’s IT Director Mike Dente, announcing that IT is, “blocking all messages from the Facebook website to our email server,” explaining that, “a virus is spreading [by] using Facebook email sending a link to a malicious video containing a Trojan.” If so, you may have wondered exactly what this virus does and how it was discovered.

“I actually received one of the messages,” Dente said, “It looked suspicious, so I did a search on Facebook viruses and there were a couple of different articles. Over the last few months, there’ve been a few of these viruses, but we’ve never been hit by one until now.”

When asked what the virus does and how it operates, Dente explained that, “it contains malware, so it tries to take over your computer. It installs programs, like SpyWare, which can bring the computer to a crawl. It uses your Facebook friends to mail it to other people,” Dente said.

When asked how many students had been affected by the virus, Dente said, “only two or three students have been affected, that we know of. We’ve blocked around a hundred emails that were infected when it happened,” noting that Facebook sends about “a hundred legitimate messages an hour, so I guess that’s why the virus is so effective.”

Dente wants to assure the LSC community, “our virus protection on campus will stop it from infecting LSC computers.” In the meantime, however, it is probably best not to open any unfamiliar links on your email.”