[ISN] For Commerce unit hit by computer virus, hardship of being unplugged has upside

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-agency-a-loss-of-technology-has-had-down--and-upsides/2012/04/08/gIQAvpAY5S_story.html

By Lisa Rein
The Washington Post
April 9, 2012

The virus struck in an e-mail 81 days ago, flagged by a federal team 
that monitors cyberthreats. The target was a small job-development 
bureau in the Commerce Department. The infiltration was so vicious it 
put Commerce’s entire computer network at risk.

To avert a crisis, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) 
unplugged its operating system - and plunged its staff into the 
bureaucratic Dark Ages.

E-mail? Gone. Attachments, scans, Google searches? Until further notice, 
no such thing.

Employees became reacquainted with their neighborhood post office and 
the beep-squeak-hiss of the fax spitting out paper. The must-have office 
supply became toner for the machine.

Twelve weeks offline and the longest intrusion into a federal network in 
recent history is still wreaking havoc.

“We don’t yet have any deeper understanding of what happened,” Commerce 
Secretary John Bryson said in an interview. “But we have the best 
resources in the federal government looking into this.”

[...]


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