Houston Courts Shut Down By Malware

Conficker is still at it: dstates writes "The municipal courts of Houston were shut down yesterday after a computer virus spread through the courts' computer systems. The shutdown canceled hearings and suspended arrests for minor offenses and is expected to extend through Monday. The disruption affected many city departments, the Houston Emergency Center was briefly disconnected and police temporarily stopped making some arrests for minor offenses. The infection appears to be contained to 475 of the city's more than 16,000 computers, but officials are still investigating. Gray Hat Research, a technology security company, has been brought in on an emergency contract to eradicate the infection. In 2006, the City spent $10M to install a new computer system and bring the Courts online, but the system has been beset by multiple problems. After threatening litigation, the city reached a $5 million settlement with the original vendor, Maximus, and may seek another vendor."

Comments

Do courts need computers?

[yog]

I thought courts were a sort of mecca for low tech methods. They use court stenographers, video taping is very limited, and it's all based on the spoken word. It's not like the prosecutor is going to talk through a Powerpoint presentation to make his/her case. Or do they allow this these days? I don't go to courtrooms very often....

From the article:

The $10 million effort by Maximus Inc. to bring the courtâ(TM)s activities online was immediately troublesome to judges, clerks and prosecutors and delayed court proceedings in 2006. After threatening litigation, the city reached a $5 million settlement with Maximus and may seek another vendor.

It sounds like this whole computerization effort was poorly executed from the get-go. Many such projects have problems, since they typically pit bumbling bureaucrats against shark-like consultants.

Anyway maybe they ought to take the database and just pull out the pending cases using ad hoc queries, and send the print-outs to the courthouse so they can get on with their work. This can't be rocket science here.

City Employees Surfing at Work

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so if these computers were used solely for official business, there wouldn't be this big of an issue. Lower paid workers tend not to have computers or internet at home, so they use work systems for "surfing." No internet access and email should only be via highly filtered webmail. USB, DVD drives and floppies locked off with zero access.

I used to work in Telecom. Our biggest malware/virus issues were at E911 centers even when the computers were on a dedicated network without any non-911 access. The nationwide 911 system doesn't use IP, so the problems didn't come from outside each 911 center. Those folks were paid $8/hr by cities and were under constant virus and malware attack from workers bringing programs in on diskettes, CDs and USB drives.

The other problem is the lack of understanding that many municipalities have over computer system maintenance. Many localities are smart and cautious, while many others treat work systems like home systems and hope for the best. Some have decided to provide free municiple wifi internet access with the same network their police and emergency services use for remote access. fools.