Sometimes I like to cleanse the palette with a lighthearted feel-good story. A little over a year and a half ago, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alerted the Economic Development Administration (EDA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of potential security breaches with their hardware. NOAA handled their clean-up well, EDA seemed to apply the logic commonly reserved for diseased cattle. I guess this counts?
Image: Memegenerator
Ultimately, it was paranoia that harmed the EDA. They spent a million dollars hiring an external firm to sanitize, secure, and guarantee immunity against malicious software. Unsatisfied with the lack of results under the final mandate, the EDA decided to destroy any hardware adjacent to any contamination.
Computers… printers… cameras… keyboards… mice…
$170,500 USD of hardware was demolished and almost a year was spent getting back on track. A further $3 million worth of equipment would have reached the same fate if the budget had not run out. This news was made public during their audit, released last month, by the Department of Commerce. The infections, discovered through this cleansing, were common malware and not a targeted attack.
The final cost of this overreaction was $2.7 million.
Well, just be glad they
Well, just be glad they didn't take the common Aliens movie phrase "Nuke it from orbit" as serious malware/virus cleaning advice LOL
But seriously, talk about wasted taxpayer money and general incompetency on the part of their IT department!
Sounds more like the IT
Sounds more like the IT department used this as an excuse to get some new hardware 😛
“Hello, IT, have you tried
“Hello, IT, have you tried turning it off and on again? Oh you have? A virus, you say. Hmmm. Yep, it’ll be infected. No, no, don’t you touch it, you could get deathly ill. Just call the nice garbage man and have him burn it. No, BURN it, not bin it. We want to prevent a breakout here, that thing could destroy the world. Yes, we’ll find a new one for you. Bye-bye now!”