Virus Knocks Out U.S. Visa Approval System

GillBates0 writes "According to this story and many others, the State Department's electronic system for checking every visa applicant for terrorist or criminal history failed worldwide late Tuesday because of a computer virus, leaving the U.S. government unable to issue visas. The virus crippled the department's Consular Lookout and Support System, known as CLASS, which contains, among others, names of at least 78,000 suspected terrorists. It was unclear which computer virus might have affected the system. But a separate message sent to embassies and consular offices late Tuesday warned that the Welchia virus had been detected in one facility. Welchia is an aggressive infection unleashed last month that exploits a software flaw in recent versions of Microsoft Windows."

Comments

Heads should roll...

[ubiquitin]

So who's responsible for IT security there? If they've outsourced IT security to Microsoft or Symantec, then it is well past time to fire them and put some linux or unix-based (low-cost high-availability) servers up. Ask any Linux sysadmin how they survived the last two months worth of email virus bombardments. Then ask a Microscrap Exchange administrator. Do some simple math on the time and therefore money involved with maintenance of these systems. Why is no-one outraged about the tax dollars being wasted on cleanup of Microsoft-platform based email viruses?