Since the beginning of the semester, the Quinnipiac Computer Help Desk has been bombarded with unhappy students and computer viruses. While the Help Desk has been working hard to fix many of the problems, many still exist.

The Trojan Q-host virus and the AIM homepage virus “realphx.com,” have been the most common of the tracked viruses.

Ben Mills, a student and assistant at the Quinnipiac Computer Help Desk, offered a few indicators that students may have a virus.

“There is the AIM profile virus which is a script that puts a link on your homepage, or your AIM profile, in which is called ‘realphx.com,'” he said. “The other virus is called the Trojan Q-host virus, which resets and modifies the computer’s internet settings, so that a student may not be able to sign on.”

The Computer Help Desk has already aided many students in need by searching through their computers and trying to detect the virus themselves, or by using different scanning tools.

“If the virus was detectable, we would remove it by hand, but usually we just used the Norton Virus Scan Service, and it seemed to remove any of these common viruses that the student body was complaining about,” Mills said.

Viruses can be easily contracted, either by downloading certain software or by clinking into a wrong page. With the AIM profile virus, students’ computers were immediately infected when clicking on the “realphx.com” link within other profiles.

According to Mills, the best way to avoid viruses is to be cautious when clicking on or downloading things. He also suggested using anti-virus programs.

“Continuously scan for a virus by using an anti-virus client and run the scans every week,” he said. “In doing so, also remember not click on any unknown links and be careful with what you download.”