Hacking has become a common trend all over the world. The act has not only become more and more rampant for commercial gains but also for other reasons such as academic gains. This was the case in California where some students managed to hack into their class teacher’s account. This hacking was followed by an alteration of the grades which was obviously to their advantage so that the system can reflect that they passed the tests. This incident took place in Orange County and the students were learning in the Corona Del Mar High School which is located in the Newport Beach which is in the Southern parts of California.
It is believed that the student used a technique that uses hardware key-logging to assess the teacher’s logging information such as the username and password. When the hacking was discovered, the 11 students were then expelled by the school administration.
The school confirmed that the students apart from using the login data to change their grades, they also used the same information to access and retrieve information concerning the exams that were yet to be issued.
According to investigations, it has been revealed that the 11 students got the key-logging machine from a person who was acting as their private tutor. It is also alleged that it is the same guy who taught them how to operate the device.
Timothy Lance Lai, who is the tutor, is currently wanted so that he may be questioned by the police regarding the matter in issue. The police are looking for him, after the incident he has disappeared from his home and the police have tried to locate him with no success.
The matter was so controversial that it had to be put to a vote in order to expel the 11 students. They the barred them from all the High schools in the area but were unable to do the same for district schools. It is reported that after the incident was discovered, some of them moved from the area to another place. Six students moved away and so only five students remained.
This has led to the school administrator of the school being put to task to review and analyze the school system. The administrator is required to review and analyze approximately 52,000 adjustment which have been made to the examination system for a period starting last year. The auditing will target all the changes that were made on the system without the proper authorization.
Even though the necessary measures have been taken so ensure that the culprits are punished and that the system is upgraded to a more secure state. The school has said that there may be many people who are involved or have been involved in the habit of cheating. The administration then explained that due to the increase use of technology, there is a risk that is always associated with it.
The school has taken upon to conduct fingerprinting and tracking the students so as to uncover the truth behind the saga. Employing the use of identification cards and monitoring the general activities when the students are out of school, are some of the techniques that the school has decided to adopt in tracking.
This security is essential since the students are well equipped to bypass the system. This is evident in the scenario that unfolded when the LA students were provided with iPads and within a short time they had unlocked them.
According to the school, very valuable information such as upcoming examinations and grading methods are at risk of being hacked.
Factors that made hacking easier
The protection of information on social network seems to be hard unlike when a person is dealing with business information. This task may require the expertise of skilled technicians. This probably means that more needs to be done in securing school information like grades and examination. It would not suffice to create usernames and passwords only. More funds and resources need to be channeled into securing the system.
Key-loggers are most of the times used in hacking. They are very difficult to detect and as such it has become the most used tool for snooping and robbing banks. This means that the best option is to install the cables in way that they are far away place where they can’t be accessed.
