An Ealing council employee infected the UK local authority's IT systems with the Conficker-D worm after he plugged an infected USB into a work computer. According to The Guardian report, system repair and lost revenue cost around £500,000.The council was unable to process more than 1,800 parking tickets (at an estimated cost of £90,000), libraries lost out on £25,000 in fines and booking fees and £14,000 was spent in overtime sorting out delayed housing benefit claims. Ealing council defended employer by saying that computer and telephone network was attacked by a sophisticated virus, like many other organizations. The council tried immediately to protect all data and ensure that essential frontline services could continue to operate. Similar infection attacked Manchester City Council in February when worm exploited a Windows Autorun security weakness in Windows 2000 machines. Connections to remote sites were blocked during the clean-up operations, and staffs in outlying offices were left without telephony system. It chiefs installed anti-virus defenses to get the ability of locking down ports on PCs. More information on described attack exists on TheRegistar web site.
