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The Dallas County Schools Technical Support Team is working to resolve a Malware attack on the system’s network that was discovered on Friday.

According to Dallas County Schools Superintendent Hattie Shelton, once an employee at one of the Dallas County Schools reported a Malware problem, the network was soon shut down to prevent the spread of the computer virus.

“We caught it early,” said Shelton. “The network was shut down by 8:30 [Friday morning].”

Shelton said that technical support worked through the weekend to restore the network at the central office and resource center.

Now that the school system’s administration has network access, Shelton said the technical support team will now begin to tackle restoring the network at each school, one-by-one.

“We will start with the high schools and work our way down to the elementary schools to make sure every computer has been touched and assessed for problems,” Shelton said.

The superintendent said that Technical Support is beginning with the high schools because they use the internet the most.

“That’s where our kids do the most online work, so our kids are kind of at a standstill as we wait for those [networks] to come back up,” said Shelton.

Shelton said that, despite the Malware attack, all Dallas County Schools are open.

“We’re doing everything on pen and paper until we’re back up and running,” said Shelton.

Shelton commended the system’s teachers as they fare without technology for the time being.

“Our staff is doing a good job, I must commend them on that.” she said. “I know it’s been difficult for them to transition back to using no technology, but they have, and right now I think we’re doing okay as far as everything is concerned.”

Shelton also commended the school system’s technical support as they continue to work to solve the problem.

“We have a good tech team and we thank them for their work,” said Shelton.

The superintendent said that the technical support team hopes to have all schools connected to the network by Friday.

Shelton isn’t sure if they’ll achieve their set goal because every computer at every school must be checked.

“We want to make sure that before we put a computer online that it causes no problems to our network,” she said. “I know they’re doing everything they can.”