Computers of Finance Ministry in Japan were Infected with Trojan Horse Viruses

Totaltele.com published a report on 20th July, 2012 quoting Japan's Finance Ministry's announcement that more than 100 computers of the ministry have been found contaminated with Trojan horse viruses which may have revealed information to servers outside their office.

The problem was exposed on 17th July, 2012 during an assessment by a private security firm in the middle of up gradation of network of around 2000 computers in the ministry. An official of finance ministry confirmed that 123 computers were infected between January 2010 and November 2011.

The official did not disclose the name of the department or section of the ministry to whom the unnatural computers belonged due to safety reasons. But at the same time, he confirmed that none of the computers belonged to any senior ministers or bureau heads although some of them were utilized by division heads.

According to the official statement published by totaltele.com on 20th July, 2012, no information related to individual's tax and confidential defense matter was saved in any infected computer.

The ministry's officials revealed that the infected PCs were used only for emailing and producing official documents and the PCs were inappropriately accessed by servers in Japan, China, United States and other countries.

The ministry is still investigating the attack and yet to identify the route of the infection. However, it has changed the hard-disks of the infected computers and has restricted data transmission while connecting to Internet.

The official of ministry commented that the virus was not detected by anti-virus software installed in the computers triggering assumption of a new type of Trojan horse.

Moreover, it is not the first time in Japan that government websites have been attacked with viruses. In November 2011, 22 personal computers of Head office and branch office of Internal Affairs and Communication ministry were found to be infected with viruses and were accessed by servers abroad.

Also in June, 2012 finance ministry of Japan detected an outside intruder on its website due to which they shut down system which had raised security concerns and the vulnerability of country's data network.

Related article: Computer Virus Detection And Prevention

» SPAMfighter News - 7/30/2012