The leading IIMs, still smarting under the recent fiasco over the online CAT debut, are creating their own firewall against similar disasters in future. After an elaborate post-mortem of the recent disaster, many IIM officials are exploring the idea of using free and open source software (Foss), rather than going in for proprietary software, to prevent online common admission test disasters in future.

“Online exams can be easily conducted using Foss as it can not only reduce costs by over 50%, but it is also safe against virus and malware attacks,” said one of the IIM officials. Infact, US-based Prometric — which bagged the high-profile $40-million contract to organise the online CAT using proprietary software like Microsoft Windows, along with NIIT — has pinned the main reason for this year’s disaster on the virus attacks.

Foss software, which grants users the right to study, change, and improve its design through its source code, is the most preferred option. He said, there is enough statistics to prove that GNU/Linux-based operating systems are less prone to virus attacks. The only other way is to keep fighting the viruses by installing the latest updates of various anti-virus softwares.“And, you have to keep your fingers crossed hoping that developers of anti-virus companies are just as fast as the virus-writers,” he added.