Wednesday 30 March 2016

ScotlandsPeople Centre dealing with computer virus

Some major updates from my earlier post on the ScotlandsPeople Centre (see http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/scotlandspeople-centre-computer-system.html).

The Scotsman newspaper story has reported at http://www.scotsman.com/future-scotland/tech/hacking-fears-at-national-records-of-scotland-1-4086146 that the centre has been closed due to a possible attempt to hack into birth, marriage and death information last week from the system. The BBC has run a much more comprehensive story, noting that a ransomware computer virus has in fact shut down the system - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-35928037.

Quite what the repercussions might be for future access are as yet unknown, but the centre has again announced a further closure tomorrow (Thursday) - see http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/news/2016/customer-notice


As previously noted, the online ScotlandsPeople website at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk is unaffected.

(With thanks to Kirsty Wilkinson via Facebook)

Chris

For details on my genealogy guide books, including A Decade of Irish Centenaries: Researching Ireland 1912-1923Discover Scottish Church Records (2nd edition), Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. My Pinterest account is at https://www.pinterest.com/chrismpaton/.

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