Sounds more like a thunderstorm - i.e. a spike due to lightning - or a brown-out. Or maybe they have several years old cheap-crap computers in which some of the cheap crap components have spilled their guts, literally. Or if they have over-priced Deciduous Fruit Computer Company computers, maybe a SW update didn't go smoothly.
But being paranoid-hysterical Libs/Progs, they went straight to ConspiracyTheoryLand.