The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development had to shut down computers in two of its office buildings in Pretoria in an attempt to contain the MSBlaster worm computer virus, the department confirmed on Thursday.
The virus first attacked the department in mid-August.
”The department has shut down its network in two of the national office buildings to prevent the spread of the virus, and have called in external contractors to help resolve the problem within the next two weeks,” said Thabo Sakasa of the department’s information systems unit.
He said the worm replicated so fast that it rendered machines unusable, with e-mail and internet access being refused or very slow, and computers crashing.
”Currently the worst hit are our regional offices, for example the state attorneys in Cape Town and Durban.”
Sakasa said the department was experiencing several difficulties in its efforts to eliminate the virus. Users at head office who had not moved on to a new operating platform were vulnerable to the virus.
Despite several warnings, many personnel had not taken precautions. Some employees used laptop computers that were not treated and as soon as they logged on to the network, the virus ”broadcast” again.
Sakasa said these challenges required the support centre to dispatch field engineers to call on each user at the national office. Because staff were not always at their desks, the ”break-fix procedure” was slow.
The national office has more than 700 employees spread over three offices. Field engineers have only met 200 individual users to date.
”We have learnt our lesson … and will in future by running a proactive patch — anti-virus software — management system on a daily basis,” Sakasa said.
He did not want to venture an estimate on the cost, saying only that it caused much inconvenience and frustration for users. — Sapa