Thursday, April 24, 2008

Blindsided By A Malware

(FISA Olympic Continental Qualification Regatta For Asia
Shanghai Water Sports Complex
April 25-27, 2008)


A USB malware wiped out ALL of Nicholas’ (FISA Umpiring Commission Chair for Asia) files in his laptop. The race summary lists, heat lists, progressions, umpires’ assignments sheet, umpiring exam sheets, updated umpiring seminar files, they were ALL gone. Nicholas tried for hours to recover what he could but unfortunately, most of the files had to be built again from scratch.

Dr. Siu (from Hong Kong) jokingly told Nicholas (while looking at me) that next time, he better make sure that he has Trend Micro product installed in his laptop. The Japanese umpires, Koji-san and Azuma-san, laughed and agreed with him.

At the end of the day, we managed to have all the requisite forms ready. Nicholas is Nicholas, after all.

But I could not help but think that malware is also an important concern in the upcoming Olympics. Imagine if all the results get wiped out? Or whatever important data needed to run the various events in the Games? Now, THAT would be a problem.

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