Police in Concord , Californiaarrested a teenagerearlier this hebdomad and charged him with 14 felony counts after discovering the mellow schooler launched a phishing drive directed at teachers for steal their passwords and switch ground level .
The 16 - year - old bookman , whose name was not released because he ’s a small fry , was arrested Wednesday following an investigation found by local constabulary enforcement , with assistance from a Contra Costa County labor force and the US Secret Service , KTVU reported .
report of the drudge first start to trickle into police two hebdomad ago , when teacher in the Mount Diablo Unified School District get going take in suspicious e-mail in their inbox . As it turns out , they were part of a phishing effort launch by the student .
The email content contained a link that transport the recipients to a bastard website retrace by the student to seem like the school day ’s portal . If a instructor clicked on the radio link , they were steer to the site that would prompt them to enter their username and watchword . The situation would record any info enter , allowing the pupil to hijack the teacher ’s account .
Police reported at least one teacher did go into their information , which allow for the student to get at the Mount Diablo Unified School District IT net and , in twist , the school ’s grading organization .
Once in the system , the student went to work modifying grades . Policetold KTVUhe changed the grades of between 10 to 15 students including his own . In some cases , he raised the score of his schoolmate . In others , he lower them , which seems like a real shaft move , frankly .
Once jurisprudence enforcement take hold of wind of the dodging , they obtain search warrant for IP address associated with the situation in the phishing e-mail . After that , it was a matter of what Concord Police Financial Crimes Supervisor Sgt . Carl Cruz described as “ good previous - fashioned police detective employment ” to trace it to the student ’s speech .
policeman show up at his home with a lookup warrant and the K-9 unit , and one of the police dogs — who is named Dug and is consider to be a good son — was able to sniff out a news bulletin private road gourmandize in a tissue box . The law did n’t seem to clarify what precisely was on the flash drive , but presumably it was connect to the hack . If not , hey , free flash lamp drive .
After being catch by the police , the scholar admit to the crime and took a little triumph circuit , tell ABC7 News“It was like steal confect from a babe . ” He has since been freeze from his shoal , Ygnacio Valley High School , for the hack . law released him to his parent while he waits for a court date to be set .
The untried drudge joins a produce list of students who have sought to improve their grade without studying . Similar hacking schemes have been executed by students inAlabama , Louisiana , New Jersey , andNew York , among others . A scholarly person at the University of Iowachanged grades more than 90 timesand stole tests and exams after stealing countersign with a keylogger .
The trend says more about the cybersecurity preparedness of schools than anything . Most school have notoriously outdated security drill , with one - third of K-12 school failing to educate their staff penis on localize up unafraid word , grant to asurvey conducted by Education Week . Maybe instead of hitting the Thomas Kid with felony charges , give them some extra credit to help patch up up the school ’s porous internet .
[ KTVU , ABC7 ]
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