The Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) said they empathise with the aspirants who could not take the computerised Common Admission Test (CAT) because of technical problems and that they would be given a second chance soon.

"IIMs would categorically like to assure candidates who could not take the test that they would get another opportunity to take the test," Samir Barua, chairman of the IIM Directors' Forum said at a press conference in IIM Ahmedabad.

"The major reason for this (computers crashing) was a virus attack. All precautions were taken for quarantine, but despite that the attack took place. In some places, there was a problem of hardware. For instance, if a switch failed it took about two hours or more for it to be changed," Barua said.

"We recognise the difficulty that aspirants had to go through because of this and empathise with them. Every student who could not take the test because of the glitch will be accomodated," he added.

Many candidates were in a frenzy when computers crashed in around 40 centres across the country on the first and second day of the CAT. The exam's staggered computerised format has a 10-day schedule and will conclude Dec 7.

An American firm Prometric, was awarded a $40 million contract by the IIMs to switch the prestigious CAT exam from optical marker reader assessment onto computers. The company has alleged that "viruses and malware that attacked the test delivery system were not detected by the anti-virus software at the testing centres".

"The decision to conduct computerized CAT was taken unanimously by all IIMs. IIMs were responsible for generating questions for the tests and Prometric was responsible for conducting the test.

"The delivery could not be executed flawlessly because of virus attack on several test sites. Prometric is working to address the issues arising from the attacks," the CAT committee stressed. Prometric is arranging how and when the re-test would be conducted, the committee said, adding that "details will be worked out by Prometric shortly and announced".