Computer viruses and other forms of malware ("malware" is short for "malicious software") are always a concern. The University of Denver is committed to helping faculty, staff, and students protect their computers and information. The University licenses anti-virus software to provide protection from both viruses and malware.
The University's version of CrowdStrike anti-virus protects your computer from viruses and spyware, proactive threats and network threats. It protects your computer for as long as it is installed and does not expire.
Who is it for?
CrowdStrike anti-virus is available to active faculty, staff, and students; it can be installed on both DU owned and personal machines.
*Note: DU owned Windows computers should already have CrowdStrike installed, so please be sure to check before installing. You should see the CrowdStrike Windows Sensor listed under the installed programs.
How does it work?
CrowdStrike is a web/cloud based anti-virus which uses very little storage space on your machine. CrowdStrike installs a lightweight sensor on your machine that is less than 5MB and is completely invisible to the end user. Once CrowdStrike is installed, it actively scans for threats on your machine without having to manually run virus scans. Updates for CrowdStrike should also come through automatically, so there is no need to update manually. CrowdStrike will not alert you when a threat is found or blocked, and there is not a system tray icon for the software; CrowdStrike will run silently in the background.
Install CrowdStrike
- In order to download and install CrowdStrike, log in to MyDU and search for "crowdstrike" or navigate to Pages > PC Applications or Mac Applications . On the PC Applications / Mac Applications page, scroll to "CrowdStrike Antivirus" section. There are to links download CrowdStrike Antivirus software.
- After downloading the installation file for your operating system, launch the install file, and then read and accept the Falcon License Agreement. Proceed through the prompts and click next/enter your computer's password to proceed with the installation. After the installation completes, CrowdStrike will now run silently on your machine.
Note: If you are using a personal Windows machine, you may have to extract the download file first and then run it as an Administrator to install the software successfully.
Troubleshooting
- If you are unsure if CrowdStrike installed successfully on your machine, please see the following steps below based on your computer's make and operating system to check.
Windows: Navigate to the "Control Panel", select "Programs", and then "Programs and Features". Under the list of installed programs, you should then see CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor.
Windows (DU Owned): Navigate to the "Control Panel", select "Configuration Manager", and then select the "Configurations" tab. Next, find the CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor configuration and check if it says "compliant". If it does not, select "evaluate" to have it check again. Once the last evaluation time is updated, try checking the CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor configuration, again. If it still is not compliant, please contact the IT Help Center for further assistance.
Mac OS X: You can check that the CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor is running by typing a command in a Terminal window. First, in order to open Terminal, please navigate to the Spotlight Search function in the top right corner and search "Terminal". Once the Terminal window appears, type "sysctl cs" and then click Return. If you do not see the "cs.version" or "cs.details field" but see "unknown oid 'cs'", then CrowdStrike is not installed on the machine.
If you need further assistance with the CrowdStrike installation, contact the IT Help Center at 303-871-4700 or come into our Help Center (AAC 270) for further assistance.