A computer virus shut down the entire B.C. government email system on Thursday, cutting off information flow for much of the day.

The virus was caused by a malicious file attachment that infected the government’s email servers, said Bette-Jo Hughes, the province’s chief information officer.

article continues below

“As soon as we became aware of the issue, we took immediate steps to mitigate the exposure to the government network and protect the loss of information,” Hughes said in a statement.

“[The] government takes this matter very seriously. As a precaution, we have temporarily disabled our email servers while we work with our vendors to resolve the issue.”

The statement — delivered by hand to the media in the legislature’s press gallery — didn’t provide information about the identity of the malicious file attachment.

The email system was back up by late afternoon.

The government said there was no indication any sensitive information was compromised.

