As a new computer virus makes its way through computers on campus, Computer Center officials are preparing to release the latest virus protection to MSU students.

Beginning today, MSU students will be able to download the 2002 version of Norton AntiVirus Professional Edition from the Computer Center’s Web site - for free.

The software was obtained through a deal negotiated by Symantec, makers of Norton AntiVirus, and an academic group comprised of the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago.

Although MSU officials were not looking for the deal, the offer was a welcome gift to students.

“It’s just a hell of a deal,” said Lewis Greenberg, director of the Computer Center.

“How could we say no?”

The contract with Symantec provides a single-user license - an online contract allowing people to legally use the software - to each student. MSU was able to purchase about 44,000 of the licenses at 25 cents each. The license will be good until the end of 2002.

The professional edition of the program has some added bonuses that the regular edition does not, Greenberg said.

The program has the ability to update and test virus schemes without letting the user know, making it look as if nothing has gone wrong with the system.

The offer comes just after the latest virus to hit computer-users on campus. The myparty.A and myparty.B viruses strike machines, to the surprise of the computer-user, and everybody in their e-mail address books.

The timing of the latest virus attack came just a day too fast for Computer Center officials.

“It’s too bad, because we were about one day away from offering (the free Norton AntiVirus) to every student,” Greenberg said.

The body of the virus’s message asks users to click on a link claiming to be photos from a recent party.

The virus can clog network traffic, and create a slowdown on an Internet connection.

“I believe there’s been a little bit of slowdown on file systems while the largest majority of traffic was there, but we’ve blocked it on Pilot,” Greenberg said.

The virus protection is coming too late for some students. Jessica Suarez, an elementary education senior, received the virus Sunday afternoon.

“I started getting e-mail from strangers wanting to know why I was sending them stuff, and I knew I hadn’t sent anything,” she said.

“I knew something had to be wrong.”

Engineers at Symantec have been working to block the spread of this virus, and made a fix available Sunday, one day after the virus was discovered. The company had 321 reports from individual users and 34 from professional users.

“That 34 is significant because a professional user could represent thousands of computers, all infected in the last 24 hours,” said Steve Trilling, Symantec’s director of security response.

Students can download a copy of Norton AntiVirus 2002 Professional Edition at help.msu.edu/nav beginning today.