Computer viruses have long been a problem at Iowa State, and one virus in particular recently has been detected across campus — the CIH virus.

The virus is thought to have begun in Hong Kong during the summer, and it has now made its way to Ames.

“It is pretty stealthy,” said Nick Bofferding, junior in computer engineering and a victim of the virus. “I knew it was out there, but I didn’t have a virus checker for my computer. As a result, I lost between two and three weeks of work.”

Jeff Balvanz, systems analyst for the Computation Center, said CIH was introduced at ISU when an unknown person ran an infected program on a university computer. He also said the virus only affects certain files within Windows 95, 98 and NT.

“It is a fairly nasty danger,” Balvanz said. “On the 26th of each month, the virus may activate itself and attempt to erase the hard drive. Also, it may corrupt the BIOS chip, which will have to be replaced if that happens.”

Bofferding said the virus can trash the first megabyte of disk space. He said it “nuked” his disk and he had to start over.

“My roommate and a guy across the hall had the same problem,” Bofferding said. “Most of the people I know were able to stop it.”

Bofferding said the virus is one of the worst he’s ever seen.

“It’s particularly nasty because it is very contagious when it replicates itself, and it can disable the hardware as well,” he said.

Balvanz said students who have detected the virus in their computers can download “Dr. Solomon’s Antivirus” from the Internet for free or they can check out the “Magic Bullet” program, available for $1 from the Solutions Center.

“There are less people now with the virus in their computers than there were two months ago,” Balvanz said. “We’ve been conducting blitzes for the last couple of months to see if computers still have it.

“We want to let the students and faculty know about the virus and get them to clean it up,” Balvanz said. “Undoubtedly, however, someone still has it.”

Bofferding said everyone should take precautions.

“You definitely want a virus checker for your computer,” he said.