County Attorney’s Office frees files after virus attack

The Pinal County Attorney’s Office restored thousands of case files after a computer virus locked them, making them inaccessible.

In all, the virus corrupted 64,000 case files and one laptop. PCAO’s IT department fixed the files using a backup server.

While a definite cause cannot be determined, PCAO suspects an infected PC subsequently caused the thousands of case files to become encrypted.

“Due to the county’s inadequate anti-virus software, our office’s case files became the target of a virus. Luckily, it did not take long for our IT department to restore all 64,000 files. It remains frustrating as they still wasted time on this tedious task,” Pinal County Attorney Lando Voyles said.

The virus, known as CryptoLocker, holds files for ransom until a fee gets paid. PCAO did not pay any money toward the unencrypting of the files.

The county is researching new anti-virus software designed to perform a more invasive scan for these types of infections.