WARNING: E-MAIL VIRUS PURPORTS TO BE FROM UNIVERSITY OFFICIALS

The Office of Computing and Communications Services has issued a warning to Old Dominion University e-mail users regarding an e-mail virus purporting to be from the "ODU.EDU Management."

The W32/Bagle.j@MM virus began hitting ODU e-mail accounts today, according to Don Murdoch, information systems security officer at OCCS. System users who receive the e-mail should not open any files attached and should immediately delete the e-mail. Murdoch also noted that McAffee has a free tool available for the general public to help combat viruses and can be downloaded at http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/.

The virus e-mail uses a spoofed address that resembles an official ODU address. The subject may be one of the following:
*E-mail account security warning;
*Notify about using the e-mail account;
*Warning about your e-mail account;
*Important notify about your e-mail account;
*Email account utilization warning;
*Notify about your e-mail account utilization;
*E-mail account disabling warning.

The body of the e-mail explains that your account has been disabled for various reasons and that to access the account again users must follow the instructions and download the attachment, which is in the form of a .zip file. It goes on to state that the attachment is password protected for security purposes and it supplies a password. The e-mail is signed "The Odu.edu team" or something similar.

For more information contact the OCCS Help Desk at 683-3192.