Government to close e-mail box over virus fears
(Reuters) -- The Swiss federal government is closing its electronic post box for Internet mail with attachments from midday on December 31 to the morning of January 3 to keep its systems from being infected by computer viruses.
(Reuters) — The Swiss federal government is closing its electronic post box for Internet mail with attachments from midday on December 31 to the morning of January 3 to keep its systems from being infected by computer viruses.
The finance ministry said on Thursday that e-mail sent to the federal administration over the year-end period would be deleted automatically to prevent system failures resulting from bugs put in mail messages by pranksters, hoaxers or hackers.
It said such electronic attacks were particularly likely given the widespread concerns over the Y2K problem, which might trigger computer crashes as systems erroneously perceive the date change to 2000 as 00 and malfunction.
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