A critical computer network is down after falling victim to a sophisticated worm. Friday, that system is down for the third day, impacting about 200 different agencies, including police departments, jails and courts all over northwest Ohio.

TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) – A critical computer network is down after falling victim to a sophisticated worm. Friday, that system is down for the third day, impacting about 200 different agencies, including police departments, jails and courts all over northwest Ohio.

A computer worm infected the Northwest Ohio Regional Information System this week, causing a shutdown of the system Wednesday. It is still unclear what caused the problem, but system administrators believe it was unlikely from hacking.

The Toledo Police Department uses the system to check for warrants, criminal histories, mug shots and other records on their laptops while patrolling.

The TPD said they do have other systems to use for accessing records while experts from NORIS work around the clock to fix the problem, but it is slowing down their work.

"We're unable to run records, checks license plates and other things of that nature through NORIS. We have other means of doing it, but this clearly is slowing us down," explained Sgt. Kelly Thibert of the Oregon Police Department.

The Toledo Municipal Court has a fully computerized record-keeping system, but is having trouble without case numbers. In fact, three dozen workers stayed home Friday. Court proceedings did go on as planned Friday with information recorded by hand, but it will all need to be entered into the system once the problem is resolved.

"Unfortunately, this is having a major impact on our operations. This is the one thing we were told could not happen to us and it has happened to us," said Vallie Bowman-English, a clerk at the Toledo Municipal Court.

Technicians at NORIS headquarters are working nonstop to battle the worm, in what has essentially become a game of whack-a-mole.

"Our virus protection software identifies it and says it's removing it, but it's actually popping back up," explained System Director Pat Wright.

While still unsure what caused the worm, Wright is confident NORIS was not hacked.

"We do not know patient zero where it popped up. It kind of showed up on a bunch of desktops at once," said Wright.

Technicians are working on bring servers online one by one. If that strategy fails, they may need to rebuild the entire system from scratch.

"We've never had anything even remotely close to this. Not even remotely close. You may get a desktop or maybe even a server infected, but not to where we're taking down the whole network," said Wright.