IIMs, Prometric blame virus for CAT glitches

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have finally broken their silence. Three days after the computer-based Common Admission Test (CAT) came under fire for its technical glitches, the IIMs and Prometric and NIIT, the companies have revealed that 10-11 per cent of students have been affected so far. Citing a virus 'Conflicker' being responsible for glitches in the computer-based test at some centres, they said necessary steps are being taken to repair the damage.

Nearly 70,000 students have taken the test so far of which 7-8000 have been affected. Tests for close to 62 per cent are learnt to be re-scheduled. A total of 2,41,000 applications have been registered for the test. While day one saw 47 labs being closed down due to the glitches, the number reduced to 33 on day two.

The test is being conducted by the IIMs along with Prometric, the developer of the computer system for CAT, which determines admission to the premier IIMs and other B-schools.

Admitting that the tests had not gone as planned, Samir Barua, director of IIM Ahmedabad said, "Yes, we have failed in the first three days but we will correct it." He said all the affected students would be re-scheduled in the coming days. When asked about mock tests being conducted for the computer-based test, Barua said, "Mock tests had been conducted. Pankaj Chandra (director of IIM Bangalore) and I had visited the centres and the mock tests were alright. But that doesn't mean the real test would also have been alright," he said.

He said that they will accommodate the remainder of the students in the remaining capacity of the labs but if they fell short of capacity, they might reschedule "by couple of days".

In all there are around 104 centres and 361 labs with a capacity of 17,000 students at any given time. Elaborating on the virus that struck the system, Barua said that the virus 'Conflicker' was responsible for the damage. "In some other centres, however, there were hardware issues," said Barua.

Charles Kernen, CEO, Prometric (US) said that the company took several security measures but couldn't prevent the virus attack. "We were unable to remove the virus so we went back to each individual lab to fix it and increased degree of virus protection of each lab. We also changed the access control for lesser vulnerability," he said.

In last six months, about 3,000 people had been trained by NIIT, which provides physical infrastructure and personnel, for the test.