Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY -- A malicious computer virus called Conficker has embedded itself in computers at the University of Utah.
A university spokesman says the virus mainly affects health science computers, including those in the university's medical school, nursing and pharmacy colleges and three hospitals. He says patient data and medical records have not been affected.
The school says it expects its tech team to work throughout the weekend to fix the problem.
Conficker infected millions of computers over the past year, but it remained largely dormant, until now. On Tuesday the virus activated itself and started downloading a fake anti-virus program onto its host computers that prompts users to pay for the service.
It's also downloading another worm called Waledac that typically spreads through a fake e-mail greeting card.
