Massachusetts attorney's office tells workers to avoid the Drudge Report because of a potential virus. (The Site's creator, Matt Drudge is photographed here) U.S. attorney's office: Stay off Drudge!

The U.S. attorney’s office in Massachusetts directed employees earlier this month not to log onto the Drudge Report website with government-issued computers due to potential viruses on the site.

In an e-mail message sent May 4, Paul Harvey, an information-technology official for the Boston office, wrote that security specialists with the U.S. attorney’s office at the Justice Department asked them “to reformat/reimage two computers because the user visited the drudgereport.com site.”


“Please avoid the Drudgereport website from the [United States attorney’s office] computers,” Harvey wrote.

Harvey said that if employees had a “work-related reason to visit the site,” access could be provided off the government network.

Asked why the conservative-leaning news aggregator and President Barack Obama critic was flagged by Internet security officials, Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said it was because “a malicious code was found contained in a Web ad on Drudge.”

Schmaler also said the request to stay off Drudge wasn’t politically motivated and said it was sent only to the office in Massachusetts. She also said other popular sites were later found to have potential viruses, including ESPN.com.