Attack of the Trojan

Successful strides have been made to recover from the IT security breach.

If you were one of the people who received various emails and notifications regarding the recent IT Security attack, you may wonder what happened and how CCS and IT Security responded. The main culprit was a Trojan virus/malware that gained access to a CCS workstation. The virus remained unnoticed by McAfee for a few days until the workstation accessed a privileged account. At that point, the Trojan infected machines in our data centre as well as others across campus. Fortunately, the virus was blocked almost immediately after entry into the privileged account. According to UofG IT Security Officer Gerrit Bos, “The thoroughness of CCS monitoring and the speed with which the staff responded after the first alert was a key factor in preventing further impact.” 

Since the incident, efforts have been made to contain and minimize damage while restoring service across campus. Forensic analysis is also being used to discover the origin and scope of the virus. CCS and IT Security are working together to identify the root cause of the incident to help prevent the recurrence of future security breaches.

CCS and IT Security can use your help to maintain a secure and safe environment for the virtual community. You should ask yourself, what can I do to help? Most importantly, install virus protection on your computer. The University offers McAfee anti-virus software to faculty, staff and students for free. Also remember to change your passwords occasionally; Gerrit suggests, “At a minimum, change your password initially upon receiving access to a new account, make it your own and make it difficult. Incorporate upper and lower case letters as well as numbers and special characters.” Apart from changing your password, simply be aware of suspicious emails and spam traps.

With your help and the efforts of the University IT team, we can strive to overcome hacking attempts.  You can find McAfee software at the CCS software distribution site.  If you have further questions please contact the CCS Help Centre at x58888 or 58888help@uoguelph.ca.