20 January 2004

TSulli Virus

An email that seems to contain a virus has gone out to the William & Mary alumni email list from “tsulli@wm.edu” with the subject “hi.” It would probably be best not to open it on a Windows machine.

Update 1/21/04: I got the following email last night from William & Mary tech support:

Earlier today, a virus impersonated several William and Mary e-mail addresses and sent many alumni and friends an e-mail message that appeared to come from President Timothy J. Sullivan.

Unfortunately, this message — which appeared under the subject “Hi” and included a warning concerning the virus W32/Bagle-A — was sent to the College’s alumni listserv. Fortunately, however, William and Mary’s server stripped the message of its virus and sent only the corresponding warning.

We regret any inconvenience this may have caused, and we appreciate those of you who alerted us to the bogus e-mail. This afternoon our technicians began work to further tighten the College’s e-mail security and prevent similar transmissions in the future.

If you have further questions, please contact the College’s Information Technology Support Center at support@wm.edu.