Virus Hijacked My Office Computers - Laments Warrick County Prosecutor

14news.com reported on 28th April, 2015 quoting Mike Perry, Prosecutor of Warrick County (based in Indiana), as saying "computers in my office were compromised by an email virus."

Perry says that the breach happened during March or April in 2014 and it happened due to an email infected with "cryptolocker" virus. This kind of virus infects files of server and encrypts them to make them unusuable. Another aspect of this kind of virus is a message from the originator of the virus asking recipients to pay an amount of "cyber" money (e.g. bitcoin) to get their files decrypted and restored.

The prosecutor's office says that files of the child support division were also breached which contained personal information such as names, addresses, social security numbers and tax information.

Perry says that he informed the proper agencies of the government after having been aware of the possible security issue when he took over.

He says that former prosecutor Joann Krantz who lost the Republican primary election in 2014 knew about the problem but didn't do anything about it. Perry says that Krantz also told employees not to discuss it with anyone. Perry released an email which Krantz sent to employees in April 2014.

Krantz emailed which reads "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." Perry says that this email referred to issues which the officer was having with equipment and software.

Therefore, a probe was ordered which highlighted some important points. Firstly, as directed by the elected prosecutor (Mike Perry), the child support staff were wrongly scanning cases and storing them in an unsafe manner. Secondly, the elected prosecutor could not fulfill the duties and obligations of her office by reporting the suspected breach and instead decided to suppress this information which stalled the subsequent efforts to find if any personal information had been illegally obtained.

Courierpress.com published news on 27th April, 2015 quoting Perry as saying "All available resources have been organized to ensure that any further breaches will be next to impossible. We, as a law enforcement officials are more than aware that identity theft is a very serious and ever increasing crime."

» SPAMfighter News - 5/1/2015