It was recently found out that some of the laptops given to vulnerable children in England home-schooled during lockdown contained dangerous malware.
Indeed, teachers raised an alarm when they found suspicious files on devices that were sent to a Bradford school. The malware in question is reported to be in contact with Russian servers and can gather information about browsing habits, as well as harvest personal information including banking details. It was found on several laptops given to various schools across England.
The Department for Education thus started an urgent investigation to settle the issue.
The company that developed the laptops, Geo, declared that they have been working with the Department for Education to fix the issue and determine where the malware originates from.
Moreover, it was found out that the laptops were supposedly infected with a self-propagating network worm identified by Microsoft in 2012, Gamarue.I.
The Department of Education then recommended that schools check their networks as a precaution, especially as the Ganarue worm is a very serious security threat for any laptop and network.
It was also recommended to reboot the laptop into safe mode and run a full scan with an anti-virus product, as well as seek professional assistance to make sure that the issue has been completely corrected.
