Website Update

23 June 2008

The first part of the redevelopment of the site has been completed with the initial pages of the new site being uploaded. At the moment we only have static pages with no database involment at all. At least this means we can't fall foul of the same virus!

So far only very basic inofrmation has been uploaded and we're aware that the data need to be confirm - especially for those department moving to the new Garrett Anderson Centre.

The next step is to rewrite the database sections of the website and refresh the data.

 

18 June 2008

The last week has been fairly horrendous as far as the website goes. A combination of network problems and a major virus infection of our database rendered the site all but useless. Unfortunately the virus infestation didn't become apparent until the last clean backup had been overwritten - so we need to start again.

At least we are in good company - the virus concerned has attacked over 500,000 websites including the United Nations, UK Government sites and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. We move in important circles!

This has taught us a valuable lesson and the back-end of the website is being completely rewritten to make it much more secure to such attacks. We're also taking the opportuinty to look at the website again and give it a bit of a makeover.

It will take us a while to complete the rewrite and re-enter the data so please bear with us while we complete this important upgrade. We will be moving data across as quickly as we can.

For more information about this virus attack take a look at this website:
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/04/microsoft-datab.html