The Defense Department confirmed Friday that a virus has infected some of its computer networks but declined to identify the infection, say whether it was a direct attack on the networks or confirm published directives that ban the use of portable storage media such as thumb drives.

“We are aware of a global virus for which there are some public alerts,” said Bryan Whitman, Pentagon spokesman. “And we’ve seen some of this on our networks. We’re taking steps to identify and mitigate the virus.”

Whitman wouldn’t characterize the infection further except to call it a “global issue” that also is affecting worldwide networks outside the Defense Department.

He also declined to confirm a ban on the use of thumb drives, although the ban was spelled out in at least two recent Air Force directives, one of which says the order comes from the Defense Department command that oversees the military computer domains shared by all the services.

Whitman also would not comment on whether officials think the infection may have been transmitted to the military’s networks by way of a thumb drive or other flash media.

“We don’t discuss specific defensive measures that we’re taking or may be taking to protect and defend our networks,” Whitman said.

He called cyberspace a “warfighting domain that’s critical to our operations. And we have to protect it.”

He said military computer network intruders range from recreational hackers to “cyber vigilantes,” ideologically motivated attackers and “transnational actors and national states” that probe the department’s networks “millions” of times daily.

Neither Air Force directive details why the ban on portable digital media was imposed throughout the Defense Department’s Global Information Grid, which includes more than 17,000 local- and regional-area networks and approximately 7 million individual computers.

But the thumb drive ban outlined in the directives was clearly in reaction to a network intrusion, one computer security expert said.

“If it’s preventive, why wasn’t it preventive last week?” said Bruce Schneier, renowned security expert and chief security technology officer for BT, a British-based global communications firm. “Something happened, and they’re worried about it propagating.”

“They’ve got something they need to deal with,” Schneier said. “And they can deal with it better if things don’t move in and out of network. The problem with things like USB sticks is that they’re off-line storage.”

Posted by Justin Payton in Adware, Spyware and Trojans at 12:02

On the mend

Computer systems at three major London hospitals are largely back online on Friday morning, three days after a major computer virus outbreak forced staff to disconnect the network.

IT systems at St Bartholomew's (Barts), the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel and the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green were taken down on Tuesday following infection by the Mytob worm. The three hospitals make up the Barts and the London NHS Trust.

A spokesman for the Trust explained that email and internet access had been restored "across key areas", while the Trust continues to roll out its recovery plan, gradually restoring computer access to wards and departments. "Progress is being made and we expect systems to be fully restored in a matter of days," he said.

A serious computer virus infection at the Trust - later identified as caused by the Mytob worm - was first detected on Monday. IT support staff thought they had the malware under control but systems crashed when hospital staff logged onto systems on Tuesday, prompting managers to launch an established disaster recovery plan. External consultants have been drafted in to get systems restored.

Posted by Justin Payton in Adware, Spyware and Trojans at 17:11

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon has banned, at least temporarily, the use of external computer flash drives because of a virus threat officials detected on Defense Department networks.

While defense officials would not publicly confirm the ban, messages were sent to department employees informing them of the new restrictions. As part of the ban, the Pentagon was collecting any of the small flash drives that were purchased or provided by the department to workers, according to one message distributed to employees.

Workers are being told there is no guarantee they will ever get the devices back and it is not clear how long the ban will last.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman would provide no details on the virus Friday, but he described it as a "global virus" that has been the subject of public alerts.

Posted by Justin Payton in Adware, Spyware and Trojans at 11:05

Unfriendly fire

The US Army has reportedly suspended the use of USB and removable media devices after a worm began spreading across its network.

Use of USB drives, floppy discs, CDs, external drives, flash media cards and all other removable media devices has been placed on hold in order to contain the spread of Agent-BTZ, a variant of the SillyFDC worm, Wired reports. Such a temporary ban would cause inconvenience in any organization, but for the US military it's an even more serious problem because in many locations email or online transfer of files are not viable options.

The clampdown applies to both the the secret SIPR and unclassified NIPR networks, according to internal Army emails cited by Wired. Variants of the the SillyFDC worm are capable of spreading over networks or removable media devices, infecting any Windows PC they are plugged into or any external drive connected to an infected device, for example. The malware is programmed to download secondary infectious code from the internet, establishing a conduit that might be used to download keylogging software, password-siphoning spyware or botnet agents onto compromised machines.

Posted by Justin Payton in Adware, Spyware and Trojans at 09:31