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For Commerce unit hit by computer virus, hardship of being unplugged has upside
From: InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:18:21 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-agency-a-loss-of-technology-has-had-down--and-upsides/2012/04/08/gIQAvpAY5S_story.html By Lisa Rein The Washington Post April 9, 2012The virus struck in an e-mail 81 days ago, flagged by a federal team that monitors cyberthreats. The target was a small job-development bureau in the Commerce Department. The infiltration was so vicious it put Commerce’s entire computer network at risk.
To avert a crisis, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) unplugged its operating system - and plunged its staff into the bureaucratic Dark Ages.
E-mail? Gone. Attachments, scans, Google searches? Until further notice, no such thing.
Employees became reacquainted with their neighborhood post office and the beep-squeak-hiss of the fax spitting out paper. The must-have office supply became toner for the machine.
Twelve weeks offline and the longest intrusion into a federal network in recent history is still wreaking havoc.
“We don’t yet have any deeper understanding of what happened,” Commerce Secretary John Bryson said in an interview. “But we have the best resources in the federal government looking into this.”
[...]
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