Computer virus The city's e-mail system was off line for five hours yesterday after it was infected with a computer virus that is apparently spreading quickly all over the world.
shuts down the
city’s e-mail
for 5 hours
The worm virus was discovered
at 3 p.m. yesterday and was
removed by 8 p.m.By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-BulletinCourtney Harrington, city spokesman, said the worm virus, described as "homepage," was detected just before 3 p.m. and the city's system was shutdown while work was done to eliminate the virus.
Harrington said the city's e-mail system was repaired by 8 p.m.
Harrington said the virus with the subject line "homepage" would search the Outlook Express address book and then re-mail itself to everyone listed.
While the virus apparently does not do long-term damage, it can clog and disrupt an organization's network in the short term. Once infected, the worm opens the user's computer to one of four pornographic Web sites.
The body of the message says "Hi! --contact name-- You've got to see this page! It's really cool ;O) Attachment: homepage.HTML.vbs"
The state e-mail system was not affected as of this morning.
However, over the weekend two state Web sites were vandalized by what state officials believe were Chinese hackers.
One was the Web site managed by the Department of Land and Natural Resources' hiking program and the other was the site for the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
Star-Bulletin wire services contributed to this story
City & County of Honolulu
