Audit NZ Called In To Investigate Virus

Waikato District Health Board today called in Audit New Zealand to undertake the external review into the Conficker virus event, which saw more than 3000 computers shut down at the DHB for periods from 34 hours to four days.

Chairman Graeme Milne said the board had signed off on a significant and ongoing spend in information technology and was disappointed the computer failure happened.

"We've commissioned this independent and external review into the root, cause and analysis and we will take whatever actions are necessary as a result of that," he said.

The investigation will start in mid January with a report available for the board in February.

Chief information officer Alan Grainer said there had been no reinfections to the computers. All 3000 PCs and laptops operated by the board's 5800 staff were online by Monday midday.

"We're still monitoring the situation 24/7 and will continue to do so for some time," he said.

Staff are still unable to use USB memory sticks or external hard drives.

Health Waikato chief operating officer Jan Adams, who is incident controller for the emergency management team, said she was proud of the response from staff at the board's five hospitals, two continuing care facilities, mental health institution and 33 community bases.

"Patient safety was our priority and it was heartening to see how well we all coped."

Technicians picked up the infection during a routine service upgrade at 2am last Thursday forcing a complete shutdown.

The Waikato DHB covers a tenth of the country across a number of outlying sites. Staff relied on fax, txts, phones and its own website www.waikatodhb.govt.nz to communicate. The shutdown resulted in an "even more robust password system" being introduced.

ENDS

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