MyGrant Worm Spreads in Academia
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2004 01:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerSolri News Agency
E-mail servers in .edu domains have been groaning under the weight of a new worm know as MyGrant. Like the recent MyDoom and classics like the Love Letter worm, it spreads as a result of unsuspecting computer users opening an e-mail attachment. This is a particularly common problem in academia, where many professors have only just learned how to open e-mail attachments, and react cantankerously to requests from system administrators that they avoid doing so.
Mails typically have subject headers like:
RESEARCH GRANT
CALL FOR PAPERS
TENURE TRACK POST
E.U. FUNDING AVAILABLE
HOT GRAD ASSISTANTS!!!!!
When the attachment is opened, it copies itself to the C: drive, then scans the contents of the "My Documents" directory, reading MS Word documents and deleting all citations. It will then e-mail them to a number of academic journals. It will also install a trojan on the infected computer which will launch a Denial of Service attack on the Modern Languages Association website on April 1st.
E-mail servers in .edu domains have been groaning under the weight of a new worm know as MyGrant. Like the recent MyDoom and classics like the Love Letter worm, it spreads as a result of unsuspecting computer users opening an e-mail attachment. This is a particularly common problem in academia, where many professors have only just learned how to open e-mail attachments, and react cantankerously to requests from system administrators that they avoid doing so.
Mails typically have subject headers like:
RESEARCH GRANT
CALL FOR PAPERS
TENURE TRACK POST
E.U. FUNDING AVAILABLE
HOT GRAD ASSISTANTS!!!!!
When the attachment is opened, it copies itself to the C: drive, then scans the contents of the "My Documents" directory, reading MS Word documents and deleting all citations. It will then e-mail them to a number of academic journals. It will also install a trojan on the infected computer which will launch a Denial of Service attack on the Modern Languages Association website on April 1st.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-02 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-02 08:38 pm (UTC)Anyway. Its a marr on the institution of academia that these ppl are so inept at using the tools of their trade. The Internet is all about disseminating information, about educating. O, the hypocrisy. Not like its thermal dynamics, or even simple arithmetic....
no subject
Date: 2004-02-02 11:40 pm (UTC)Yeah, figures....
Date: 2004-02-03 01:35 am (UTC)"Come 'round to my place honey, I'll show ya the SIZE of my research bursary - if ya think y' can handle it !"
Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 04:48 am (UTC)I agree on the telephone issue, and the annoying incompetence of some academics. I work in a unit which mainly teaches English and academic skills to first-year students, and there's all this stuff about how we need to challenge students, expand their horizons etc., but a lot of the teachers have a strong resistance to having their own horizons expanded. I can understand some people's not liking computers (after all, I don't like cars) but this attitude of "Oh, it's too difficult and complicated, I can't be bothered to learn it" is unbecoming. If your students can learn to do MLA citations, you can learn to use a spreadsheet.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 05:46 pm (UTC)