NORIS Temporarily Offline

It's almost 2 days that one crucial PC because of vital data stored on it, benefiting many local counties, is in a non-functional state. Consequently, NORIS (Northwest Ohio Regional Information System) that lets many departments, with courts and law enforcement included, to extract and share documents, has been forced to halt operations. 13abc.com published this on February 25, 2012.

Apparently, one PC worm crept inside the computer system. Thereafter for removing it, technicians had to shutdown all hitherto running software, causing too much stress to over 100 agencies, which worked with that software.

Notably, NORIS' main function is to keep criminal records of 7 lakh offenders along with providing access to live arrest orders, mugshots as well as police, court and jail records. However, the attack has caused cops along with other affected departments to intensively interact with each other for ensuring their required information was available.

NORIS Director Pat Wright said that the situation reflected an extreme sinister motive and the use of an extremely advanced worm/virus that automatically got encrypted. 13abc.com published this.

Meanwhile, NORIS officials informed court clients and police early February 22, 2012 that they wouldn't have access to the particular computer as a malware infection had necessitated its shutdown. However, it's hoped that the remaining PCs will be saved from crashing. Wright acknowledged that the situation was clearly one where conditions weren't desired as getting worse. Foxtoledo.com published this on February 24, 2012.

Unfortunately, even after NORIS' PC-technicians cleansed the system the first time, the worm came back. The agency therefore requested Federal Bureau of Investigation too in order to get advice from its computer-crime specialists.

A visibly-frustrated Wright said that it was much similar to whack-a-mole for, each time the worm was removed, it returned again, adding that even according to the anti-virus program, the malware had been removed.

Additionally, NORIS was yet forced towards shutting its office which conducted criminal background examinations, with junior staff scared to even boot the PCs they operated.

Administrative Judge Michael Goulding for Toledo Municipal Court (Ohio) stated that they couldn't log onto any PC despite several attempts. Foxtoledo.com published this.

Related article: Newark Town Councilor’s Yahoo! Account Hijacked

» SPAMfighter News - 3/3/2012