Computer virus shuts down Houston municipal courtsHouston shut down part of its municipal court operations Friday, cancelling hearings and suspending arrests for minor offenses after a computer virus infected hundreds of its machines. City officials said they expected the problems to extend at least through Monday.
Court offices will remain open to allow people to pay tickets and fines, but the dockets will have to be reset, a move that will affect thousands of cases, city officials said.
It was unclear Friday how the virus got into the system, but officials promised a thorough investigation. They could not say when they hoped to have the virus removed from the city network.
The disruption cascaded through city departments, leading police to temporarily abandon making some arrests for minor offenses. Officials also briefly disconnected the Houston Emergency Center. Although some emergency communications, such as dispatching, are routed through the center, police experienced no major disruptions, officials said.
By Friday afternoon, officials said the virus appeared to be contained to 475 of the city’s more than 16,000 computers. But the problems it caused grew so severe that city officials made an emergency purchase order for up to $25,000 to bring in Gray Hat Research, a technology security company that began trying to eradicate it through the early morning hours Friday.
Lewis said city officials began to notice some of the effects of the virus on Wednesday and began a full-fledged effort to quarantine it on Thursday. It had the effect of severely slowing down the operations of computers, he said.
The Houston Emergency Center disconnected from the city network at 11 a.m. Friday and reconnected around 4:30 p.m., officials said. The only impact on emergency operations was that some dispatching had to be communicated by radio rather than broadcast to computer screens inside police cars. Officers had no trouble making routine license or criminal records checks in their vehicles, police and city officials said.
However, police this weekend will be using only citations for class C misdemeanors instead of arrests, since they cannot be processed. Exceptions will include public intoxication, disorderly conduct and some assaults. Class B misdemeanors and above are processed through the county jail. For the most part, officials said, the temporary hold on arrests was expected to impact only minor traffic warrants.
Mayoral spokesman Patrick Trahan said people in jail would be able to make bail, but several bondsmen contacted by the Houston Chronicle were under the impression that no one could be released until Tuesday.
