Unpatched, Virus-Infected Windows To Blame For Grounded French Fighter Pilots And Halt To Traffic Arrests In Houston

from the gov't-security dept

Reader Calvin sends in two separate stories of government institutions who apparently failed to patch their Windows machines to protect against the Conficker virus -- despite the patch being available for many months. First, Houston police have stopped arresting people with outstanding traffic warrants and shut down the municipal court system for a few days to try to deal with their computer systems being overrun by the virus. Then, across the Atlantic, the French Navy is dealing with a similar problem, forcing them to ground many of their fighter planes. Some naval staff were told not to turn on their computers at all, as apparently the Navy's internal computer network has been hit by the virus as well. Apparently, now might be a good time to run some traffic lights in Houston or invade France (kidding, kidding...).
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Filed Under: cornficker, france, houston, security, viruses
Companies: microsoft


Reader Comments

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  • identicon
    Dave Barnes, 9 Feb 2009 @ 1:40pm

    cheese-eating surrender monkeys

    ja mein Führer

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Ron (profile), 9 Feb 2009 @ 1:56pm

    French Navy

    Soooo, that explains the Frenchers going after MicroSoft; they did not want their military limited to using only one media player. I do find it a bit frightenng that even some of the French military was brought down by a virus. Could we really soon be at a place where some pimply Nigerian kid could maybe bring down NATO with a virus planted in a note from Mrs. John Mugabe whose husband, recently deceased and who was the head of foreign deposits at the National Bank and Trust of Cote de Azure, was holding US$31M in funds deposited by a former oil company embezzler who recently died, without heir, in an unfortunate auto accident?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:17pm

    ROFLMAO at Ron

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:28pm

    Title correction: Bad Admins To Blame For Grounded French Fighter Pilots And Halt To Traffic Arrests In Houston

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      alex, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:37pm

      Re:

      title correction correction: Bad Admins to Blame for Hitler invading France Despite Being Dead and Halt to Traffic Arrests in Houston

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Haywood, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:30pm

    So have the French raised the alert level?

    From run to hide? Only 2 levels left after that, surrender and collaborate. ;p

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Frenchie, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:34pm

    Ha Ha Ron

    I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal
    food trough whopper! I fart in your general direction! You mother was a hamster and your father smelt of edeberries. Why do think I have this outrageous accent, you
    silly king!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2009 @ 2:40pm

    Frenchies

    Frenchies are dumb. They should start using mac OS, just like americans (Yes. it cost twice the money. But interface is so nice!).

    Or like germans who use linux (free. but our soldiers are still learning how to install the drivers).

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Paul, 9 Feb 2009 @ 4:28pm

    UK Subs

    UK Submarines are to have MS Windows installed. I would not like to on board at depth if they get knocked out by a virus.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Amaethon, 9 Feb 2009 @ 4:42pm

    The French...

    Well, did someone really expect the French to win any fight with something other then themselves????

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2009 @ 5:07pm

    Confused

    What happens is the French park the jet fighters in Houston?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jesse, 9 Feb 2009 @ 5:26pm

    "What happens is the French park the jet fighters in Houston?"
    Mushroom cloud

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Clippy, 9 Feb 2009 @ 6:05pm

    Pop Up

    It looks like you trying to defend your country from evil doerz, would you like some help with that ?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2009 @ 6:16pm

    Be afraid, be very afraid

    I hope they did not use Windows in any UAVs

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Rich Kulawiec, 10 Feb 2009 @ 7:36am

    Quite, quite stupid -- but expected

    It's not difficult to find naive, foolish people who actually think it's possible to secure a Windows system adequately...despite the existence of over a hundred million counterexamples. These pathetic individuals labor under the delusion that if only they add a sufficient number of band-aids -- firewalls and IDS's, anti-virus and anti-spyware -- they can somehow, magically, manage to compensate for all the inherent design and implementation flaws in Windows.

    They're wrong. This incident is merely the latest confirmation of that, one of many -- many! -- that no doubt will be explained away by the inferior Microsoft fanboys as the fault of system administrators or somesuch.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Feb 2009 @ 8:01am

    Its always a good time to invade France as long as they don't need computers to raise the white flag.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 10 Feb 2009 @ 11:33am

      Re:

      Given that they need computers to raise the white flag, invade France now and they'll eat you alive.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Feb 2009 @ 10:34am

    There was a brand new jet that was flying around the pacific right around Jan 1st and when it crossed the International Dateline, the GPS system stopped working. No GPS, no guidance. They couldn't get it up and running inflight, so they had to send a tanker to give it gas and guide it home.

    That was a US fighter.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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