Students busted for hacking computers, changing grades

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/27/students_hack_teachers_computers/

By Iain Thomson in San Francisco
The Register
27th January 2012

Three high school juniors have been arrested after they devised a=20
sophisticated hacking scheme to up their grades and make money selling=20
quiz answers to their classmates.

The students are accused of breaking into the janitor=E2=80=99s office of=
=20
California's Palos Verdes High School and making a copy of the master=20
key, giving them access to all the classrooms. They then attached=20
keylogging hardware to the computers of four teachers, and harvested the=20
passwords needed to access the central files of the school network.

They then used that access to change their grades slightly, nudging them=20
up by increments so that all three got As. At the time they were caught,=20
keyloggers were found on three other teachers=E2=80=99 systems, indicatin=
g the=20
group was expanding its efforts.

"They were pretty smart," Palos Verdes Estates police Sgt. Steve Barber=20
told the Daily Breeze. "They knew exactly what to do with the computers.=20
The scores wouldn't go up a whole lot, but enough to change their grade.=20
They didn't want to make it real apparent something was going on."

The three didn=E2=80=99t just confine themselves to computer hacking. The=
y're=20
also accused of using the master key to pilfer around 20 tests before=20
they were given -- they then worked out the answers and sold them to=20
other students. This scam only came to light when another student heard=20
of the offer and snitched to the school principal.

[...]


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