Students may be able to say goodbye to annoying viruses and worms on their computers with free downloads of Norton Anti-Virus.

On- and off-campus students will be provided with the licensed software, said Dave Edmondson, assistant provost of Information Services. On-campus students are required to install the package and are advised to stay current with updates to ensure stability and high performance to the network, he said.

CERT Coordination Center, a security organization that tracks computer security issues, reported a rise of more than 62,000 in the number of security incidents since 2001 and the number is still rising.

The entire project was funded from the Information Services budget, Edmondson said.

Students will be given a few weeks to download the updates, Edmondson said. After that, if students haven’t taken the right precautions, their network privileges will be suspended.

Starting this semester, computers found to be infected will not be allowed to connect to the network, Edmondson said. TCU will be running software to ensure students have downloaded the necessary updates and to check for infected computers. Though TCU will be sorting through the network, they won’t be looking through personal files, Edmondson said.

Allie Millard, a resident assistant in Wiggins Hall, said anything free for students is always great.

“However, some residents have been having problems because they didn’t know they needed to uninstall the virus systems they already had,” she said.

Students may download the anti-virus software from my.tcu.edu. Students who use Macintosh computers or those who are having problems downloading the updates, can get an installation CD in the resident halls.

The Computer Help Desk has provided more information to all students on their Web site, (http://www.is.tcu.edu/helpdesk/resnet/nav/).