DfE investigates reports of malware found on laptops for disadvantaged children

According to online forum EduGeek, headteachers in Bradford received a warning from the council over malware, linked to Russian servers, being discovered on laptops due to be used by disadvantaged children for home-learning.

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An email from Bradford Council to school leaders, which has been shared on the site, states: “We have been made aware of the following issue from a Bradford school. They have just received their final assignment of Windows laptops from the DfE. The laptops are Geo Geobooks 1E.

“Upon unboxing and preparing them it was discovered that a number of the laptops are infected with a self-propagating network worm (Gamarue.I). The network worm looks like it contacts Russian servers when active.”

The message goes on to claim that the malware was discovered in an infected file which appeared to have been modified in December 2019 “shortly after the laptop was manufactured”.

“The DfE have confirmed that a few schools have reported this,” it adds.

A DfE spokesman said: “We are aware of an issue with a small number of devices.

“And we are investigating as an urgent priority to resolve the matter as soon as possible. DfE IT teams are in touch with those who have reported this issue. We believe this is not widespread.”

The laptops are believed to have been rolled-out as part of the government’s scheme to enable disadvantaged children without digital access to log on to lessons from home during school closures due to Covid-19.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson recently announced a boost to the scheme aimed at providing a further 300,000 children with devices.

The boost would see 1.3m children recieve devices by the end of January, he added.

Sam Curry, chief security officer at cyber security company Cybereason, said: "While specific details are scant, it would appear the laptops in question are refurbished which increases the chances of viruses or malware being present from the previous owners. 

“The good news is the Department of Education doesn't believe it is a widespread problem, which eliminates it being part of a malicious attempt to spy on school students or disrupt the education process. The safest way to ensure students received a bug free laptop would have been to wipe the hard drives, essentially starting from scratch by removing existing files and doing a complete reinstall on every machine. However, this requires time, money and patience. To reduce the overall risk to students the Department of Education should be putting security parameters in place to prevent them from downloading games, other apps and other unnecessary programs that could come from untrustworthy websites and sources and be laced with viruses or malware."