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By Applelinks Senior Editor John H. Farr
A U.S. State Department database vital to issuing visas (known as CLASS, for Consular Lookout and Support System) was unusable for much of Tuesday, according to numerous reports like this one from CNET. The culprit was almost certainly a Windows virus known as Welchia, related to the MSBlaster worm.
This affected all State Department offices around the world, none of which was able to issue visas during the outage. How much longer is the United States government going to rely on attack-prone computer technology for vital functions? (The CLASS system is one of the tools used by the government to keep track of terrorists.) The following is also very interesting, especially in light of yesterday's development:
Welchia and the related MSBlast virus target openings in Microsoft's Windows operating system and have been linked to a number of government computer failures. [our emphasis] A new report from the Computer and Communications Industry Association asserts that reliance on a single technology, such as Windows, for an overwhelming majority of computer systems threatens the security of the U.S. economy and critical infrastructure.
'Nuff said.
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