Virus attacks British Navy
Monday, January 19, 2009
Human error may be at fault for a virus infecting communication capabilities in the British Navy last week when a virus wreaked havoc on various machines.
IT systems including email and internet access aboard warships were all affected, though the Ministry of Defense (MoD) assured that "no weaponry or navigational systems have been infected," the British news provider PcPro.co.uk reports. Also unaffected were any networks that reportedly held sensitive information.
The NavyStar systems were installed on the Navy's PCs in 2001 and were redesigned into a smaller product to make them better suited for the tight-space environment, according to the article. Recently, a security test had been implemented and found to be working normally.
Some security experts guessed the attacks were not orchestrated by hackers, a fact that was eventually confirmed by the MoD. Instead, the virus which reportedly infected 75 percent of the Navy's systems was more likely due to human error.
This may be a stark reminder to corporations and SMBs of the need for employee training when it comes to security issues, especially in a year that will reportedly see an increase in security spending by organizations, DarkReading.com reports. Some SMBs have also employed email archiving, which can assist in email security and disaster recovery.
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