Aspirants Scared As CAT Website Infected With Malware

Applicants for the (CAT) Common Admission Test,(a test conducted to get admission into the most esteemed management institutes in India, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM)), got a shock as the official website set up for the test was found infected with malware, as reported by Indiaedunews on September 02, 2010.

The website started performing slow on August 31, 2010, distressing so many visitors. Whenever the applicants visited the official CAT website (www.catiim.in) an alert message popped up saying that the particular web page at catiim.in had been reported as an attack page and had been blocked on user's security preference.

Even Google search declared that the CAT website may harm user's computer. Although the website is not used for the purpose of online registration, candidates depend on this website for all important details such as dates and announcements.

As per the reports, by now this bug has affected many users who visited the website.

In the past also (2009), the online exam proved to be a big failure as computers across various examination centres crashed because of technical faults. Hence, now the crashing of website is panicking candidates about one more series of technical faults.

Moreover, the timing of the malware attack has panicked the candidates even more because as it has been just two days since the sale of CAT-2010 brochures and online registration commenced.

CAT officials admitted that the website was infected owing to some of the files they uploaded previously, as reported by Znews24 on September 2, 2010. Further, he clarified that the registration data was safe on other servers.

This particular website is primarily an information based website. Thus, usually it does not save any sort of data. All important details and CAT's data is stored safely on their other website iim.prometric.com.

Prometric, the agency conducting the exam, released a statement saying that the matter was resolved and the affected website does not stock up any details or information about the candidate, as reported by Hindustan times on September 3, 2010.

On the other hand, the website, www.catiim.in, is still displaying alert messages when accessed through some specific browsers. Security experts are recommending people who were affected by this website that they must be aware of the fact that even the best and reputed websites can prove dangerous to computers. Thus, it's always secure to have a effective antivirus program running.

Related article: Asprox Virus Attacks Several Websites in UK

» SPAMfighter News - 9/10/2010