Sites with Information on Viruses

Anti-Virus Software

If you are a member of the MIT community and can get an MIT personal Web certificate, you can use the MIT site-licensed antivirus software without charge. See the MIT page on downloading and installing it.

Sites with Information on Viruses

Following is a number of links that provide information about viruses and can help you pin down a specific virus.

F-Secure Computer Virus Info Center
The Virus Encyclopedia from Computer Associates is an alphabetized list of viruses that are 'in the wild'.
Security updates from Symantic lists the 'top threats', the 'threats', and some 'removal tools'.
McAfee's Virus Information Page and
McAfee's Virus Search Engine. McAfee is the vendor for the anti-virus software used at MIT.

Some reports about viruses are 'hoaxes'. These reports are often sent by innocent people to everyone in their address book thinking that they are being helpful. These reports usually contain stern warnings that you should pass the information along!

If you suspect that you have received one of these, look up the following links.

Hoaxbusters, a public service of the CIAC Team and the U. S. Depart. of Energy.
Vmyths.com, a site that teaches about 'computer virus myths, hoaxes, urban legends'

David S. Woodruff, MIT Lab for Nuclear Science

(Last modified July 14, 2003)