Bishop's emails struck down by virus

A virus on the Diocese of Manchester's computer system has left the Bishop of Middleton without emails for more than a week.

The central offices of the Diocese of Manchester have been without email since 3 March following a virus infecting its servers and an unprecedented amount of spam.

Two weeks ago, following continuing concerns over missing emails and an unacceptably high occurrence of breaks in service, the diocese changed its IT provider.

The new IT technicians discovered a virus that had severely corrupted systems and meant that, since 3 March, emails sent to the Diocese of Manchester central offices, its Archdeacons, and the Bishops of Bolton and Middleton have not been received, nor have they been able to send emails. Emails sent via the Diocese of Manchester website have not been delivered either.

In addition, an audit of the 6000 pieces of communications sent by the Bishop of Manchester over the past ten months revealed that a significant amount of electronic mail, though sent by the Bishop, may have been deleted during sending or has simply not been delivered by the system. In addition, many emails sent to the Bishop may not have been received.

A spokesman for the Bishop said: “Given the nature and scale of the problem it is likely that the Bishop will never fully know which emails failed to arrive nor the number of emails that were sent by others to him but were never received by his office. If people have written or emailed the Bishop of Manchester during the past ten months and not received a reply, it is likely that a system failure is to blame.

“The diocese receives about 1 million spam messages a year along with numerous virus attacks. The fact that one virus got through and the effect it has had on our systems vindicates the decision to move our IT provision.

“The new IT providers have been given the brief of establishing, as an urgent priority, a cast iron IT system for Bishops, Archdeacons and our central administration. If an email is sent to us and a reply or acknowledgement has not been received within three days, then individuals should follow-up the message with a phone call. As a policy, where possible, people should always request a receipt when sending email to us.”