University Park, Pa. -- As students, faculty and staff are doing the normal activities to get ready for fall semester, they should keep in mind one activity that absolutely needs to be added to everyone's to-do list: preparing computers to connect to the Penn State network.
It is very important that members of the University community check their antivirus software to ensure that it is current. Students who will be moving into residence halls should have virus-free computers before they connect to the network. Computers found to be infected with viruses will be disconnected from the network and allowed to reconnect only when they have been determined to be virus-free.
Information Technology Services (ITS) offers Symantec Antivirus products free of charge to all students, faculty and staff. The Symantec Antivirus software is available on the latest PAC-ITS CD (version 8.0) distributed at ITS Help Desks in Willard and Computer Buildings, and at http://downloads.its.psu.edu online.
The Internet is not always a safe and friendly place. Although ITS has worked hard to help provide a safe environment for computing, ITS can do only so much. Students, faculty and staff are responsible for securing their computers against viruses, worms and intrusion attempts, and should install and update virus protection software and security patches. Information on how to protect computers is available at http://its.psu.edu/takecontrol/ online.
Questions may be directed to the Willard Help Desk at (814) 863-1035 or the Computer Building Help Desk at (814) 863-2494, or to helpdesk@psu.edu. Help Desk hours of operations are available at http://css.its.psu.edu/consulting/consult.html#hd online.