Tallahassee Democrat - Whoops

To all:

The Agency for Enterprise Information Technology (AEIT) has received reports from several agencies that some agency computers have been infected as a result of visiting the Tallahassee Democrat website. Our office has contacted the Tallahassee Democrat regarding these reports. The Tallahassee Democrat is aware of the situation and the newspaper is working with corporate headquarters to find and fix the problem. The parent company contracts with external parties to provide advertisements to fill in space on the website and Democrat staff believe one of these advertisements is the problem source.

It is important to note that the end user does not need to click on the affected add to become infected, but opening the page may result in the Trojan being downloaded to the computer. We also have received information that some anti-virus software is not preventing infection.

AEIT is working with SUNCOM network staff to temporarily block this website from agency access.

Please do not access the Tallahassee Democrat website until this issue is resolved.

Mike Russo, PMP®, CISSP, CFE, CGEIT™
State Chief Information Security Officer
Office of Information Security
Agency for Enterprise Information Technology
State of Florida
850) 922-7502
mike.russo@aeit.myflorida.com