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TMCNet:  Clark County website back up after virus scare

[March 07, 2013]

Clark County website back up after virus scare

Mar 07, 2013 (The Columbian - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Clark County's website is back online after a virus scare brought the site down Wednesday afternoon.

County officials took the site down after learning that visitors to the site could become infected with a virus that was working its way through county computers.

The county believes that visitors to the site between 11 a.m. and 3:15 p.m. Wednesday had the potential to be infected, but are unsure if that actually happened.

"If the public came to the website, they might have been exposed to the virus, but it doesn't mean they were harmed or infected," said Mary Keltz, county spokeswoman. "Whether or not they were infected or harmed depends on what they did on the site." Keltz said some files may have been infected, and if someone downloaded those files there is a chance they picked up the virus.

The county is urging anyone who visited its site to run an antivirus program as it should catch the virus.

The county still hasn't identified the virus, but they believe it is a modified version of an older program.

The virus works by propagating itself through the creation of new files, but as of Thursday morning it does not appear the virus destroys information or steals data.

While the website is back up, some county activity is still being stymied by the virus.

Employees are being asked not to access information on shared network drives.

Keltz said the limitation does not appear that it will hinder any county business from getting done, as workers can "go back to other techniques." County officials are performing a sweep of the county system. There is currently no timeframe for when that will be completed.

The county first became infected by the virus at 9:13 a.m. Wednesday. The source of infection is thought to be a USB device that was plugged into a computer somewhere on the county's network.

County officials do not believe the infection was done intentionally.

The virus infected a content management system that manages articles on the county's website. The county's information technology department believes that when the system ran a scheduled update, it uploaded the virus to the public site.

The virus was discovered later in the day; commissioners were interrupted during their weekly board time meeting to be told of the news. Commissioners immediately granted the county staff's request to shut down the website.

Erik Hidle: 360-735-4547; http://twitter.com/col_clarkgov; erik.hidle@columbian.com.

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___ (c)2013 The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.) Visit The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.) at www.columbian.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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