Hard for me to believe. This is from WCAX.com. Why haven't they been reading my blog?!
Montpelier, Vermont - April 13, 2009
An outbreak of a computer virus forced the Vt. Agency of Human Services to shut down its computer systems. State computer experts are working on the problem to get departments back online.
They've been working on the problem all weekend and were still at it Monday night.
Because technicians cut the Agency's computers off from the rest of state government, it appears the virus was contained.
"This was a new virus previously not identified," said Rob Hofmann, the secretary of the Vt. Agency of Human Services.
The unnamed computer virus was designed to disrupt operations in large organizations, like corporations or state governments.
The virus was detected on Friday on a handful of computers within the Agency of Human Services. AHS includes a variety of departments handling everything from prisons to public health.
But it does not appear any personal information was lost or accessed. The virus instead confuses and slows computers and shuts down anti-virus software.
"We voluntarily brought down the system to prevent one computer from infecting another computer," Hofmann explained.
The servers were shut down over the weekend while a computer security company developed a cure for the virus.
"We know the servers are clean. The virus eradicated and we're working with the couple of thousand computers to make sure each is brought online," Hofmann said.
2,500 computers-- brought online one by one.
The immediate shutdown appears to have prevented the virus from attacking computers in other parts of state government. Technicians are closely monitoring computer systems to be certain. And Hofmann says other organizations should do so too.
"One area of concern is our nonprofit partners with whom we work no reports of problems but advise them to make sure anti-virus software up to date," Hofmann said.
Hofmann says services under his agency continue-- perhaps a bit more slowly while this is going on. He says instead of using the agency's computer network it's back to pen and paper, faxes and phone calls for now to make sure clients are still served. The agency is hopeful that all 2,500 computers will be back online by Tuesday night.
At first the virus that hit looked a lot like the computer worm Conficker that we've heard about. But computer experts now say it is not. It's a new virus. And again, security companies already have a way to get rid of it.
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