In an internal message sent late Tuesday to embassies and consular
offices
worldwide, officials cautioned that "CLASS is down due to a virus found
in
the system." There was no backup system immediately available, and
officials
could not predict how long the outage might last.
Such an outage would represent the most serious disruption in years to
U.S.
government computers from an Internet infection.
State Department spokeswoman Joanne Moore said the agency experienced
some
computer problems but could not confirm the visa-checking system was
affected.
"We did have some computer problems," she said. "They're working on
it."
Every visa applicant is checked against the names in the CLASS
database. The
State Department's automated systems are designed not even to print a
visa
until such a check is completed.
It was unclear which computer virus might have affected the system. But
a
separate message sent to embassies and consular offices late Tuesday
warned
that the "Welchia" virus had been detected in one facility. Welchia is
an
aggressive infection unleashed last month that exploits a software flaw
in
recent versions of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software.
Collectively, Welchia and a related virus, "Blaster," have infected
hundreds
of thousands of computers worldwide, including computers at the Federal
Reserve in Atlanta, Maryland's motor vehicle agency and the Minnesota
Transportation Department.
The State Department has invested heavily in the CLASS system since the
Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, more than doubling the number of names
that
applicants are checked against. One provision of the Patriot Act,
passed
just weeks after the attacks, added FBI records, including the bureau's
violent gang and terrorist database. The list also includes the names
of at
least 20,000 people accused of serious Customs violations and the names
of
78,000 suspected terrorists.
