PC-Viruses Halt Pekin City Hall Network

According to Pekin City officials, the PC-network at Tazewell County, Illinois situated City Hall has been kept closed for most part of the 4th week of April 2011 consequent of two different incidences of virus attack, reported Pjstar.com on April 24, 2011.

Stated Frank Mackaman, Interim City Manager, a virus attack for the first time on the city hall's computers was executed on April 18, 2011 that kept the systems down till April 19, 2011. Pjstar.com reported this.

Mackaman further stated that a second assault with a virus was launched on the network, April 20, 2011 whilst 4 computers were started without their security applications getting automatically updated letting the virus to creep into the computers. Thereafter, the IT department, to maintain precaution, closed the network so the virus couldn't proliferate, he continued.

Mackaman also said that the IT personnel were in the process of treating the network past diagnosis without saying for sure that an e-mail wasn't the cause of the virus' entry.

Meanwhile, given that the above kind of attacks is malicious, security specialists recommend certain valuable measures for lessening them. These are: users should first take the computers offline and quarantine them and then eliminate the malware. Also, for removing any virus, they should employ removal software that's especially designed for the malware. Additionally they must ensure that the anti-virus they deploy on their systems have proper patches to tackle the particular online hazard, calling for updating their software at the earliest.

Furthermore, following a virus assault, destructions are likely to include changing of file names, deletion of files or halting of software applications permanently. Thus, before restarting to use a PC, it's important to bring it back to its earlier state-of-affairs.

Eventually, it's because of the above kinds of incidences that PandaLabs the security company highlighted in its Threat Security Report, Q1-2011 that malevolent assaults were on the rise. The statement appears more convincing with numerical data from the company, which indicates that over January-March 2011, cyber-criminals designed a mean of 73,000 fresh malware items daily compared to 63,000 during Q1-2010, with PC-viruses accounting for 17% of all malicious programs identified.

Related article: PC-Virus of 2005 Threatening Japanese Bank Accountholders, Warns Symantec

» SPAMfighter News - 5/2/2011