Mat-Su Borough computer virus brings many services offline

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough offices are currently experiencing the effects of a computer virus that has rendered much of their services temporarily unusable and unavailable to both employees and the public.

Starting at the end of last week the borough’s anti-virus software began picking up unusually frequent threats in their server. After beginning an investigation, IT decided the best option was to do the computer version of quarantine.

“By Monday night, Tuesday morning, we realized that the nature of this attack was much more severe than we normally get. So we made the decision to cut off the internet from the rest of our network, shut down some of those services and provide containment,” said Eric Wyatt, IT director for the Mat-Su Borough.

Five hundred of the borough’s laptop and desktop computers have been shut down and are currently in the process of being reimaged. Their website is fine, and some phones and computers do work, but many do not.

The issue is being viewed as criminal activity, just as theft or assault would be, according to Wyatt. The FBI cyber crimes division has been brought into the case to help determine what the virus is and possibly who started it.

“This particular event, as we started to look at the nature of it, we realized that it rises to the level of cyber crimes. In this case you immediately contact the FBI,” he said.

In addition to regular Borough IT, eight different IT related agencies and venders have offered their services to help work through the virus. A former employee of Wyatt’s was given on a temporary loan by his new boss to come back to help as well.

“Coming together during an incident like this is absolutely fabulous. It really shows the strength of our people, that in time of difficulty like this, we get the smartest minds together, they work together and they solve the problem,” Wyatt said.

Currently, employees are resorting to ancient technology, such as typewriters to get their work done.

“It’s been very frustrating, because just to do a document, a piece of legislation that would normally take 15 minutes, is 45 minutes on a typewriter,” said Gary Koskela, Mat-Su Borough buyer, who also worried about all the emails that he knows must be backing up on his computer.

The libraries in Sutton, Willow, Talkeetna, Big Lake and Trapper Creek are using manual pen and paper techniques to check out books, according to a borough public release on its website.

The short-term impact of the virus is costing them man-hours as people are able to work less efficiently without the use of computers. Consequences on the long-term scale could end up being a permanent loss of stored data as these disruptions can potentially delete even the Borough’s backup files, according to Wyatt.

If the virus is no worse than they are currently aware of, IT should have central services back online by next week, but a full diagnostic and cleaning of their network will take up to three or four weeks.

To reach the borough, a temporary main phone number has been established at (907) 861-7879.