To: All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff &
           All Undergrad Students & All Grad Students <everybody@illinois.edu> 
    From: "Peter M. Siegel" <cio@uiuc.edu>

Reply-To: cio@uiuc.edu
 Subject: MASSMAIL - Residence Hall Network

To:  All faculty, staff and students

Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services (CITES) recently
sent an email to all Urbana students to make them aware of the potential
impact of the so-called "Blaster" worm and "sobig" virus, which had already
infected seven hundred campus systems earlier this week, as well as
machines at businesses, homes, and campuses around the world. Because of
the aggressiveness of these attacks, the Residence Halls in concert with
CITES  have taken the unusual step of asking that all  Residence Hall
students validate their systems for virus protection and patches before
their computer networks are turned on.  This will mean that students will
need extra time to connect their computers to the Residence Hall network;
in the mean time, all students will be able to use the computer labs (as
always) to access online services.

This step was essential because the alternative --  hundreds or thousands
of unpatched systems becoming compromised at the same time -- would
virtually ensure an unusable network and even greater disruption for those
additional students whose machines would become compromised through the
"infection" process.

We ask that the entire community understand the uniqueness and truly global
nature of these computer problems.  In this regard, Illinois is not unique,
but we believe it is unique in the responsiveness and dedication of the
staff in finding the best possible solution.  We apologize to the student
community and to the faculty for the disruption as students return to
campus and ask the faculty for patience as students get their systems
online.   The CITES web pages at www.cites.uiuc.edu will have up-to-date
advisories.  If you have questions contact cio@uiuc.edu. 
  
  
 Peter M. Siegel 
 Chief Information Officer, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Provost & Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

-- 
This message sent via MASSMAIL.  < http://www.cites.illinois.edu/services/massmail/ >