Malware infection strikes US Justice Department

A virus infection of unknown type and origin necessitated the partial shutdown of computer networks belonging to the US Marshals Service on Thursday. The FBI was also believed to have been infected, and other Justice Department agencies were taking precautions Thursday as well.

Nikki Credic, a spokesperson for the US Marshals Service, provided very little data about the nature of the problem, but she did state that no data was known to have been compromised. The agency took down its net access and shut down some parts of its e-mail service while tech folk got to the source of the problem.

Government agencies are hardly immune from infections large and small. Back in November, the Department of Defense went through considerable trouble over an infection that began with, it is believed, an infected thumb drive. In the resulting uproar, the DoD ended up banning the use of any removable media in computers attached to the NIPRNET or SIPRNet systems.