Trojan Virus Hits RISD Schools

School officials have confirmed that the computer network of Robstown Independent School District (Texas, US) have been recently attacked by a Trojan horse virus.

Orlando Garza, Technology Coordinator, stated - the computer network of the district was hit on August 9, after an infected executable file had been opened at one of the elementary schools, as reported by RECORD STAR on August 27, 2009.

The result of the hack was unleashing of the virus which infected several computers across the district. Orlando Garza further states that the virus reproduce and then store itself at several areas of the system, thereby denying internet access to students and faculty members.

However, there is no concrete proof that the virus was made to steal private details from the systems it infected, said Garza.

In the meantime, the district has contacted two different firms to find out the cause or evolution of the virus, but both were not successful.

The officials inform that the cause why this issue has taken so long time to resolve (around three weeks) is because the virus was unknown to any of the professionals came to visit the campus. Furthermore, the district's information technology officials informed that the virus was stronger than any other versions they had ever seen.

For more than fifteen days, a system virus stopped the teachers from entering grades and marks, sending mails and other digital communication with their administrators. The virus district wide took the ISD employees of Robstown back to pre-digital age with more face-to-face and phone communication.

The school officials declared that the results of students were delayed and everything collapsed. They also said that people worked for hours during weekends to see how it could be fixed.

The technology department has thus downloaded antivirus software that appears to be repairing several infected units.

Moreover, cyber criminals are targeting schools everywhere. In a related news, several of Norfolk (Virginia, US) were told to check their computer safety after five high schools had been targeted by a virus in March 2009.

Related article: Trojans to Target VoIP in 2006

» SPAMfighter News - 9/9/2009