Fergie's Tech Blog

Florida Theater Chain Hit by Computer Virus

Robert McMillan writes on InfoWorld:

Buying tickets online for Tom Cruise's latest movie became a Mission: Impossible for some theater goers last weekend thanks to a computer virus that gummed up ticket-buying in the southeastern U.S.

The virus popped up late Friday afternoon, disabling operations of Muvico Theatres, a small regional chain based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Hackers hit Muvico's Internet servers just as the company was gearing up for its busy weekend period, inconveniencing "thousands of movie-goers," said John Spano, a Muvico spokesman.

The malicious software disabled Muvico.com's showtime-listing and ticket-purchasing features, and then spread to the company's point of sale systems, halting credit card transactions at Muvico's 12 megaplex theatres in Florida, Maryland, and Tennessee.

"If people showed up with a credit card and they did not have cash, then they had to be turned away, because we had no way of selling them a ticket," Spano said.

More here.

Note: At the time of this post, the Muivco web site still has a message on it's website which reads "Purchasing online tickets or accessing showtimes is not available at this time. Website is under maintenance. Please contact your local theater."

posted by Fergie @ 5/12/2006 06:19:00 AM