East Lothian schools taken offline over virus fears

Schools across East Lothian have been taken offline after a virus alert was triggered.

An investigation has been launched after internet access had to be frozen for 16,000 pupils and teaching staff across the county.

East Lothian Council said the network was shut down yesterday after anti-virus alerts were flagged up by the IT teams and remains offline.

Earlier today, students were given access to the education system through their Google Chromebooks, but other equipment remains offline, including teachers’ and admin staff computers.

It is understood that there are contingency plans in schools for being offline.

A spokesperson for the council said: “We have taken the precautionary step of taking our schools temporarily offline while we investigate a number of antivirus alerts on our education network.

“Work to determine the cause continues and we are liaising with school teams and our suppliers to minimise disruption. Chromebook access has since been re-enabled to education sites. There is no indication our systems have been compromised.”

The council has seven secondary and 36 primary schools and said its education network is separate from its corporate network which is unaffected.

The decision to take the system offline comes just weeks after the local authority had to suspend pupil access to Gmail accounts after an email containing “inappropriate” content went viral after being sent from a student’s account.