A computer virus shut down several critical areas of Scotiabank's operation yesterday, preventing the bank and customers from gaining information on account balances, and, in many instances, forcing supervisors to honour cheques on the basis of judgment call.

The virus, a strain of an existing worm called Zetob, has been wreaking havoc on users of Microsoft Windows 2000 in the USA and Europe, but Scotia is the first significant institution in Jamaica which is known to have been affected.

The bank,, in acknowledging the problem yesterday, said it was fighting the worm, and was working towards full restoration of service by Friday.

"We are working diligently to repair the system,, but some branches in Kingston are already up," said Marie Powell, vice president of corporate affairs and marketing. "We expect to have all branches up and running by Friday."

Not all areas of the bank's operations were affected. Scotia's customers were still able o use ABM, merchant point of sale and Internet banking. The virus targetted and crippled the branch operation.

"We are not able to get into our branch banking system which gives us access to customers' information," said Powell.

But this did not prevent the bank from providing deposit-taking and chequing services to customers. Powell said that these customers were not turned back, and that individual branch supervisors decided whether to execute these transactions - while not being able to verify account balances.

In fact, at the bank's Oxford Road, Kingston, branch yesterday, tellers were seen scurrying to supervisors to get their authorisation for cheque payments.

Up to yesterday, it appeared that the virus had not spread to others in the banking community.
National Commercial Bank said it was not affected.

"We certainly are not experiencing any computer problems at NCB," declared Belinda Williams, public relations manager. "I mean the computer worm has not affected our software," she elaborated. "Service to our customers has not been affected, we are doing brisk business as usual."

Scotiabank itself made the public disclosure of the problem through a press statement yesterday, though the Observer had simultaneously been put on the trail by sources within the bank.

"Service has been interrupted due to technical difficulties being experienced resulting from the global challenges affecting Microsoft Windows 2000 operating systems," said the release. "Scotiabank is working assiduously with all our service providers to rectify the situation and are hopeful that within the next 24 hours we can resume normal operations."

The release stressed that the bank's alternative delivery channels such as ABM, Internet banking and merchant point of sale were working.

The virus appears to have originated in the USA, and within hours travelled through cyberspace to hit Jamaica.
Yesterday, an advisory posted on Bloomberg Website, Bloonberg.com said the computer worm targetted Microsoft windows software, and was discovered on Tuesday. It affected major businesses in the US, including Cable News Network (CNN) in Atlanta and New York, which forced a programme schedule alteration, ABC network, and the London-based Financial Times.

Bloonberg.com explained that the destructive programme was a strain of an existing worm known as Zetob that impacted computers running the Windows 2000 programme.
It said people who had updated their software or were using other operating system versions such as Windows XP were not affected.

The advisory quoted researcher Joe Hartmann for Trend Micro in Tokyo Japan as pointing to potential for additional infection to computers outside the US. Any Windows 2000 system that had not yet been patched was vulnerable, he said.

Up to yesterday, the Jamaica Computer Society (JCS) said it had received no calls from members that they were affected by the worm.

"We have no calls from any of our members that they are negatively affected," an official said.

The official, however, did offer advice to those operating large systems: that they should install firewall protection against virus.

"I would strongly suggest that companies make use of this safeguard," he said.

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