The time-consuming task required

a technician to manually download the software patch onto the harddrive

of each computer, a daunting task considering Fayette County Schools have

more than 5,200 computers on its network.

The security patch was sent

out by Microsoft in anticipation of the bug, since the weakness in its

software systems had already been identified and reported in the tech

world. But it wasn't soon enough to keep the virus from invading

the firewall of the school system's main servers and opening the

door to all kinds of unwanted transmissions.

On a normal day, the school

district processes about 22,000 legitimate communications, Steil said.

On one day last week, more than 1 million files managed to slip through

the firewall, effectively overwhelming the network and shutting it down.

But Monday, things seemed to

be