Saratogian Website Infects Several University Computers

Officials from New York's Skidmore College are warning employees to avoid visiting The Saratogian website after a virus infected several computers at the University.

According to Brien G. Muller, IT Help Desk Manager, Skidmore College, the problem seems to have emerged from a malicious ad on the website, as per the news published by PostStar.com on May 6, 2010.

As confirmed by Steve Shoemaker, Web editor at The Saratogian, the website seems to be suffering from some problem and the corporate owner of The Saratogian, the Journal Register Company, knows about the problem and is trying to resolve it, as per the news published by PostStar.com on May 6, 2010.

Moreover, officials at Saratog Springs City Hall warned employees and the Saratoga Springs Police Department via e-mail that some of the PCs in the city had been infected by the virus.

The newspaper (The Saratogian) released a warning regarding its website via its Twitter account on May 6, 2010. As per the warning, the website was facing some serious virus problems.

It is noteworthy that the staff members of the sister newspaper of The Saratogian, The Record, also reported the same incident. As per the news published by The Record on May 6, 2010, they said that they have learnt that some of their readers might have encountered certain problem due to a computer virus being spread from the website.

They also stated that they are meticulously working with Journal Register Company in order to rectify the problem and will soon discover the root cause of the problem, ensuring that the incident doesn't occur again.

To conclude, the researchers noted that The Record is not the only one to encounter this problem, as many other websites have also reported similar issues in the recent past. For instance, Xinhua, news agency run by Chinese government, was also detected spreading malware in April 2010.

» SPAMfighter News - 5/21/2010