The British parliament’s computer network has been hit by the Conficker virus. The fallout from the revelation has raised serious questions about security policies on the network.

An e-mail sent to members of parliament and leaked to the Dizzy Thinks blog before being carried by Channel 4 News says the network has been infected by Conficker. It notes, “This virus affects users by slowing down the Network and by locking out some accounts.” It’s not clear if these effects have actually happened to the Parliamentary network or if the e-mail author is simply quoting the general effects of the virus.

Officials are currently scanning the entire network and will cut off access by any infected machine until it is cleaned. The e-mail also notes that the virus can be spread through removable media such as USB drives and asks politicians and staff to stop using such devices for the time being.

But the most worrying point in the note is a request that “if you are running a PC or portable computer not authorized to be on the Network that you take it off immediately.”

That’s a pretty clear implication that not only are some politicians or staff linking unauthorized computers up to the Parliamentary network, but that there’s no security measures in place to stop this happening.

Parliamentary officials not only refused to answer Channel 4’s questions about why this security gap exists, but also refused to say why they were unable to answer.

Even those security measures which do work aren’t always perfect. A filtering system designed to block access to offensive or illegal content and malicious software includes the Daily Sport newspaper on its blacklist. While some might agree with this classification – the newspaper has the highest nipple count in mainstream publishing – it’s an unfortunate choice for blocking given that its website carries a weekly column by politician Lembit Opik.

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Entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 1:43 pm under Uncategorized.

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