Viruses 'a blessing in disguise'

The SoBig and Blaster viruses could be a "blessing in disguise" as they can help IT departments apply a security policy to home users, according to the software manager at the Open University (OU).

Speaking at IDC's Security Conference in London this week, Marilyn Moffat described the security challenges facing the OU, which has more than 7,000 staff and thousands of students around the world interacting with the university via email.

"We have local and remote users. It is OK for guys to work from home but we must protect our core infrastructure," she said.

The OU has a multi-layer antivirus and spam strategy to help keep its messaging infrastructure working continuously, but like many organisations it could not avoid SoBig and Blaster this summer.

The university has a Computing Code of Conduct, obliging users not to hurt the network or attach equipment which could harm it. But this can prove "difficult to enforce", acknowledged Moffat.

"We are still struggling to educate users, especially with the increasing speed of the exploit life cycle of viruses. Perhaps SoBig and Blaster were a blessing in disguise because we can look at implementing enforced policies," she said.

"Blaster saturated the network. It made people aware of how disruptive viruses can be on day-to-day work.

"Until now we have never said 100 per cent that people must have antivirus protection on their desktop when they work from home, because we shied away from making policies for home computing use. But now we are looking at a way of enforcing policies."

But she went on to admit: "It can be hard, as [users] all have different levels of technical ability."

The OU is putting together a CD to help home users update machines and get access to information on antivirus software.

"Firewalls aren't user friendly, sometimes even for sophisticated users," Moffat said.

When it comes to enforcing safe computing, she added: "I have the right to get someone off the network if a machine is deemed a threat and not allow it back on until it is no longer a threat. I have done it a few times."