A USB stick infected with malware brought Ealing council to it’s knees for several days after a town hall employee plugged it in to a work computer.

Despite the use of anti-virus software, the virus spread through Ealing council’s IT network, preventing the use of phones and making it impossible to process payments and fines for nearly a week.

On top of this delay, parking tickets worth £90,000 had to be cancelled, £14,000 was spent on on clearing housing benefit claims, the library service lost £25,000 as it could not issue fines or booking fees, and council property rent could not be collected. 

Total costs are estimated to exceed £500,000 in lost revenue and system repairs.

A council report said:

“At the point the memory stick was plugged in the virus attacked the host PC.

It blocked connections to anti-virus and Microsoft Support websites and attempted to establish connections with 500 internet sites chosen at random from a selection of 25,000 seeking instructions from its author, and sought to also contact other similarly infected PCs that it could find.It then started propagating itself across the Ealing network.”

Bhav Lakhani, Operations Director at the international software distribution company Codework observed that;

“This unfortunate incident highlights the increasing dangers usb sticks and other endpoint devices pose and emphasises the  importance of having a sound security strategy in place”

A council spokesman said: “The council acted immediately to protect all data and ensure that essential frontline services could continue.”