As has been widely reported, Exeter University was hit by a major virus attack on 17th January 2010. Although not widely reported, this virus is a brand new virus, and has never been seen in 'the wild' before.

Exeter University use Symantec (makers of Norton) to protect their systems - and Norton Antivirus 2010 was recently rated by PC Pro Magazine as the Best Antivirus software available at the moment - in other words - it's good!

The virus only attacks Vista machines that have been upgraded to Service PAck 2, but have not had the most recent patches applied.

How do you ensure your machine is patched?

At ClystNet, we find that very few of the PCs we work on are fully updated/patched. Please, make sure your is!

It's easy - go to your start menu, programs, and run Windows Update. This will check for updates - allow the system to install them.

Whilst there - click on 'change settings' (on the left) and make sure 'Install Important Updates Automatically' is selected. When your computer flags up that it is downloading/installing updates - LET IT!

As a final note - we received this in today's Microsoft Tech Bulletin.....

Apply the Critical Security Updates for Internet Explorer Vulnerabilities

This cumulative security update resolves seven privately reported vulnerabilities and one publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer. The more severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. This security update is rated Critical for all supported releases of Internet Explorer.