Virus attacks council computer systems

Mar 6 2009 by Stuart Wilson

TROUBLED South Ayrshire Council suffered another setback – when a deadly virus attacked their computers.

Staff were locked out of their systems as the bug rampaged through the network.

The Conficker virus, one of the worst in history, has already affected 15 million computers worldwide.

Software giants Microsoft have even offered a £170,000 reward to catch the creator.

The council’s technical chiefs are still battling to repair the damage to their system.

Councillor Bill McIntosh revealed: “The council’s computer systems were taken off line for a period of two hours to allow ICT staff to assess the impact of a virus appearing on some PCs.

“The virus alert was delivered by the council’s anti virus product. The virus has now been contained and staff are working to fully remove the quarantined virus from all sources.

“To date the virus has been removed from the data centre and we have made significant progress on removal from the desktop.

“Whilst having to take the computer system off line for a short period was inconvenient, employees across the council continued to deliver services across South Ayrshire.”