IT Industry News: Cornficker worm costs Manchester £1.5m

It has been revealed that Manchester City Council was prevented from issuing hundreds of motoring penalty notices in time after the infamous Conficker worm knocked out parts of its IT systems.

Drivers in Manchester who were caught on camera driving in bus lanes escaped punishment after Manchester City Councils fine processing system was forced offline during February after it was infected by the infamous Conflicker worm. The worm prevented the Council from issuing 1,609 tickets within the statutory limit of 28 days leaving them £43,000 out of pocket.

There was a far more significant implication however with clean up and consultancy fees costing an estimated £600k. In addition, council IT chiefs spent a further £600k on thin client terminals as part of an enhanced backup strategy and £169,000 on extra staff needed to handle a backlog of benefits claims. Compensation payments to benefit claimants piled on the financial pain.

In total the incident cost the council an estimated £1.5m, the Manchester Evening News reported. The worm infection left council workers unable to send emails or print documents, and struggling with extra red tape after they were obliged to keep additional back up paper records in case data was lost.

Council chiefs have now banned the use of memory sticks, which have been blamed for causing the infection, as well as disabling all USB ports in response to the incident. IT chiefs have also promised to revamp the councils disaster recovery strategy, which the incident exposed as hopelessly inadequate.

Previous victims of the Conficker worm have included the UKs Houses of Parliament and hospitals in Sheffield, as well as many other organisations outside the UK.

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