History
Several new particularly virulent Internet viruses and worms were discovered in the Summer of 2003, and have caused outages to Microsoft Windows systems across the Internet (both personal computers and servers). Examples include the “Blaster Worm”, the “Welchia Worm” (aka "Nachi worm") and the “Sobig” virus. Some District Systems have been affected.

The District uses firewall technology that affords substantial protection against receiving this worm from the outside, and from LAUSD machines affecting other systems on the Internet. Once it is inside the firewall, however, it can infect machines that do not have the latest security fixes applied.

The Information Technology Division has detected activity of the Blaster worm and the Sobig virus inside the network. Please insure machines under your control are patched.

Microsoft provides several critical updates that ITD strongly recommends be installed on all Windows machines. Be advised that this process will take time due to traffic to this site. Updates can be found at: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

Memorandums
To read a letter to all Employees from Megan Klee, Chief Information Officer, click here.
To read a letter from Microsoft to Education customer regarding these viruses click here.

Related Information and Web Sites
District Employees and sites may download anti-virus software here: http://software.lausd.k12.ca.us/ .
Symantec offers removal tools for machines that have been infected:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sobig.f@mm.removal.tool.html
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.blaster.worm.removal.tool.html
http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.welchia.worm.removal.tool.html

For more information about tools available from Symantec go to http://www.sarc.com/