Macs are less likely to have these types of problems for a number of reasons. They constitute less than 10% of the market, so there are fewer of them out there to begin with. They are very good at doing specific things, but not very flexible. The main reason is that no respectable hacker would be caught dead using a mac product, so they are not writing malicious programs for them. This has given Macs a false sense of superiority in resisting infections. Since they have been gaining a larger market share, this perceived advantage has been called into question by an increased number of malware attacks on macs.

Vista is definitly not he answer. Wait another year or two until they get the bugs worked out of that crappy OS. Windows XP is still the most stable and it doesn't suck up near as many resources as Vista does. You practically need 2 gigs just to run Vista decently.

Just remember, updates are upgrades and untested updates can be just as bad as the problems they are trying to fix. If you're running an older computer with a newer OS, the wrong update can cause your computer to stop running entirely. These software companies don't care about legacy computers, but selling more product. Remember that.

Gotta love WIndows..Maybe they need to upgrade to "Vista"

I didn't know the school calls windows operating system a “data packet”.

From the info in the story, I would presume these to be Windows machines. It is probably just a previously identified vulnerability with an active exploit that Microsoft released an update for. Applying the update, or patch, would fix the problem. I see this all the time in my line of work.
This is a good time to remind everyone that you should stay up on the latest patches available from Microsoft and Apple. In Windows XP with service patch 2, there is an automatic update feature that can be set to download and install the updates for you, or to download and tell you the updates are ready to install, or just tell you there are updates available. In Mac OS, software update is configurable to check daily, weekly, or monthly with a prompt before or after downloading, but you must tell the system to install. Both systems make it easy to stay up to date with patches.

The distinction between different types of malicious programs is sometimes quite technical, but the bottom line is they screw up your computer and are usually very difficult to completely remove. I have been the recipient of a number of notable infections and have sometimes spent days battling them. Most programs are intended to breach security, load unwanted programs, and obtain personal information. They do not want your computer to shut down and they do not want you to be aware of them. This particular malware may have been poorly designed or may just be designed to wreak havoc. Good luck eliminating it. If it is in more than one computer, then it definitely spreads and would have the potential to infect all computers in the network. A small component can hide in the registry or somewhere else and reinstall the malware after it has been removed. Are the infected computers PCs or Macs?