Google roots out Herriman Web virus

HERRIMAN — The swine flu isn't the only virus Herriman has concerned itself with the past couple of weeks.

"We had a problem with our anti-virus software, and a malicious code attached itself to our Web site," said city ITS manager Steve Brown.

"Malicious code" is tech talk for a harmful computer virus that apparently fastened itself to the herriman.org Web site and actually created its own Web page that, when visited, would automatically download the virus.

Search engine Google quickly identified the suspicious HTML code and blacklisted the site with portentous warnings: "This site may harm your computer" and "Reported Attack Site!"

"The site's clean now," Brown said. "We're just waiting for Google and Firefox to give us a green light by taking us off their suspicious list. That could take up to a month."

Until Firefox discharges the warning, Brown said users should feel comfortable ignoring and bypassing the warnings to get to the city's site, which gets about 15,000 hits a month.

It is unknown if the virus arbitrarily landed on the site or if it was deliberately uploaded.

— Jacob Hancock