The Student Service Center in Client Support has seen a large increase in computers infected with a virus named AntiVirus 2009. It constantly changes and takes on other names. The bottom line is that it can make a computer unusable. A new variant of this virus has recently emerged. It encrypts all files in My Documents and then requires a user to pay $50 to download a program to decrypt the files and make them usable again.

To protect against this, and as a general best practice, be sure to back up important work documents, files and images on a regular basis. Students, faculty and staff can use their MySBfiles for storage. Backing up data to outside sources, such as an external hard drive, is another good solution.