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"We have had an attack," said Kevin Brooks, Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Administration, which provides computer networking for state agencies.

"We have attacks on a daily basis, and this one did get through," he said.

State information technology experts estimate there are hundreds of attacks on state computers on any given day, but they say getting into a system is rare.

Brooks and others said they could not provide more information about what happened without risk of exposing the state to additional attacks.

"We'd prefer not to talk to the mechanics of the attack, because it did expose a limited vulnerability," said Mike Callahan, director of network services for the department.

The damage was very minor, he said. The goal of the intrusion was likely to obtain personal or other data, but none was obtained and it did not prevent state employees from providing service to the public, he said. The attack, he said, "exposed a tiny chink in the armor."

The worm may have found a weakness in some older computers that it could exploit, he said. In response, those machines have been shut down and are being upgraded.

Departments involved included Labor and Workforce Development, Health and Social Services, and Administration, said Brooks.

The attack consisted of a worm that infected computers, and then tried to find and send passwords and files overseas.

"We've gotten pretty pro-active in shutting down things that are suddenly doing things they are not supposed to do. The containment was pretty rapid," he said.

Officials declined to say where the attacks originated, but said they were working with federal authorities and their computer security counterparts in other states to track them.

There was some good news about the attack, said Callahan. A very serious attack showed the state's computer networks were robust, he said.

"Several years ago when we got these kinds of attacks it would bring down the entire network," he said.