Virus causes eight-day computer shutdown

IRVINGTON, NJ — An inactive internet has caused some major frustration in Irvington. The eight-day shutdown, caused by a nasty virus, resulted in setbacks within the municipal government building and affected everyone except for the Public Safety Department.

Irvington Municipal Clerk Harold Weiner was quite aware of the disruption.

“I haven’t had computer service since Monday of last week.” Weiner told the Record-Transcript in a recent phone interview.

Musa Malik, Irvington’s business administrator, was ready to offer an explanation for the disruption.

“We have a virus. That was the cause of the disruption,” Malik told the Record-Transcript in a phone interview. “This was the second or third time this has happened in five years. There’s been an increase in cyberattacks on the infrastructure. We’re currently in the process of bringing the network back up, but we’ve been able to recover from any cyberattack that occurs.”

“We have to check every single terminal so we can bring it back up,” Malik continued. “We will be able to bring it back once every computer has been checked and wiped clean. Once that happens, we can bring the network back up. We are fully operational; we’re just not utilizing all of our terminals or our full systems. Once we’ve checked all of those, we can anticipate that we’ll be back up by tomorrow morning.”

The network was fully operational the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 1.

  Harold Wiener, Musa Malik