The US Department of Defense revealed a virus has affected Pentagon computers, which has led it to enforce a ban on USB drives in the building.
“We are aware of a global virus for which there are some public alerts on. And we’ve seen some of this on our networks… we’re taking steps to identify and mitigate the virus,” Pentagon spokesperson Bryan Whitman said.
While officials have not disclosed which virus infected the computers, it must have been big – Pentagon computers are scanned for viruses millions of times each day.
But they aren’t taking any chances – a 17 November memo has issued the “immediate suspension” of flash drives used on computers connected to both classified and unclassified networks.
They may or may not be returned to their owners.
COMMENTS
SmartCompany is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while it is being reviewed, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.