Virus Sent To Sabotage Terror Watch List Computers

Colorado’s 9News reports federal prosecutors have charged a former Transportation Security Administration employee with attempting to sabotage terror watch list computers.

According to the report, Douglas Duchak, 46, of Colorado Springs, faces two charges of attempting to damage protected TSA computers.

Duchak pleaded not guilty and was released from custody.

The suspect allegedly tried to send a virus into the computer system’s servers, after learning he would be terminated, 9Wants to Know confirms.

The computer system includes the government’s no-fly list.

Duchak worked at the TSA’s Colorado Springs Operation Center where the government loads computers with data received from the federal government’s Terrorist Screening Database and the U.S. Marshal’s Service Warrant Information Network, according to a U.S. Attorney’s office spokesman.

Duchak worked at the Colorado Springs Operations Center from August 2004 to Oct. 23, 2009 as a data analyst.

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US Marshall Service Struck By Computer Virus Attack

A computer virus attack has struck the computer system at the U.S. Marshal Service, affecting Marshals in Birmingham.

The virus has caused the Marshal Service to shut down parts of their system to keep it from spreading to other agencies.

That means Marshals in Birmingham can’t access the NCIC computer and they don’t have access to email.

A Marshals spokeswoman in Washington, D.C. says at no time was any data compromised.

The type of virus and its origin have not yet been determined.

Source

Computer Virus Time Bomb Could Go Off April 1 – Conficker Virus

UPDATE: Department of Homeland Security has released Worm Detection Tool

The Conficker Internet worm could strike at infected computers around the world on April 1, a security expert warned Monday.

Conficker is a sophisticated piece of malicious computer software, or malware, that installs itself on a Windows PC’s hard drive via specially written Web pages. It then conceals itself on a computer.

Graham Cluley of the British security firm Sophos confirmed that Conficker is programmed “to hunt for new instructions on April 1.”

However, he added, “This does not mean that anything is going to happen, or that the worm is actually going to do anything. Simply, it is scheduled to hunt a wider range of Web sites for instructions on that date.”

One strange thing about Conficker is that no one yet has any idea what it is programmed to do.

In February, Cluley told The Times: “It’s as if someone is assembling an army of computers around the world, but hasn’t yet decided where to point them.”

A worst-case scenario for April 1 would be for all the world’s millions of infected computers to receive simultaneous instructions to attack, or to flood the Internet with spam e-mail.

via FOXNews.com – Computer Virus ‘Time Bomb’ Could Go Off April 1 – Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News.