Nine year-old blamed for US school system hack

[Kari]

Youngster uses teacher's login to redraw Blackboard

Police hunting a hacker who had attacked a US school's systems found themselves cornering a "very intelligent" 9 year old instead, it has emerged.

When passwords for teachers at Spring Hill Elementary, Virginia, were changed without authorisation the school board initially thought a hacker had broken into the school district's Blackboard system.

Police were called in to investigate in mid-March and were quickly able to trace the incident back to a PC at the home of a 9 year-old school student.

The youngster's mother was initially chief suspect in the hack but after speaking to her and and her son police came to the surprising conclusion that they were dealing with a 'kindergarden' hacker.

"He's a very intelligent 9-year-old,with no criminal intent," Officer Don Gotthardt, who investigated the case, told The Washington Post.

Nine year-old blamed for US school system hack ? The Register

 

[chev65]

If he really was very intelligent he would have use a proxy server to hack the schools account from.

Thanks for posting Kari.

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

If he really was very intelligent he would have use a proxy server to hack the schools account from.

Thanks for posting Kari.

I think the sheer fact that he did it, is impressive enough.

 

[cclloyd9785]

How she managed to do is is simply amazing. I see a bright future for her if she doesnt hack anymore.

 

[DarkDavil]

Thats some impressive stuff. I see a very bright future for this young kid!

 

[IggyAZ]

All the kid did was see the teachers login name and password and remembered it. That particular teacher had full Administrave privilidges. So all it was was someone knowing a login name and password and not a true hack. LOL But like you all said impressive for a 9 year old. LOL

 

[Pieloi]

yeah, logging in using details isnt exactly hacking and when people say it is, it kinda boils my tinkle. Crap alot of my old professors used to type in their entire login accidentally (often) into the user name area (on projector...), then I'd just login, fix the network up, clear some spam, add some more learning resources, put a Nes emulator somewhere and doom 1 and 2 for when class was worthless.
Get out.
Then watch as the technicians scratch their heads.

At one point I got punished for it, loud mouthing the entire LOL HAX, WAR GAYMZ crap.
People just find the word hacking alot more powerful, grabs attention, even if they don't know anything about what they are talking about, such is media.

 

[baarod]

This is another example of the fire-drill overreaction folks have to information security. It's a blackboard folks. If the kid took chalk to a physical blackboard you'd have never read about it. The police wouldn't have been called. I think the reaction should have been to write up the IT guy who gave a teacher admin access and write up the teacher for not keeping the password secret. And maybe a detention for the kid. No police should have been called.

 

[Jonathan_King]

This is another example of the fire-drill overreaction folks have to information security. It's a blackboard folks. If the kid took chalk to a physical blackboard you'd have never read about it. The police wouldn't have been called. I think the reaction should have been to write up the IT guy who gave a teacher admin access and write up the teacher for not keeping the password secret. And maybe a detention for the kid. No police should have been called.

You must remember that as of the time the police were called, all the teachers knew is that their passwords were hacked. They had no idea who did it, or how.

 

[baarod]

This is another example of the fire-drill overreaction folks have to information security. It's a blackboard folks. If the kid took chalk to a physical blackboard you'd have never read about it. The police wouldn't have been called. I think the reaction should have been to write up the IT guy who gave a teacher admin access and write up the teacher for not keeping the password secret. And maybe a detention for the kid. No police should have been called.

You must remember that as of the time the police were called, all the teachers knew is that their passwords were hacked. They had no idea who did it, or how.

It's still a blackboard at an elementary school. Not a matter of national security.

 

[CarlTR6]

Bet that teacher will be more careful!

 

[chev65]

If he really was very intelligent he would have use a proxy server to hack the schools account from.

Thanks for posting Kari.

I think the sheer fact that he did it, is impressive enough.

All that kid did was to copy from the teachers login, not hardly what I would call a hack. Any computer savy kid these days could figure that out. Now a kid who's smart enough to hack through a proxy, that's what I would consider very intelligent or very stupid depending on how you view it. They would have never caught him if that was the case.

Nine year olds are smarter than people seem to think. My kid was rewriting and manipulating game files when he was 8 years old.

 

[thefabe]

All this shows me is just another case of how many computer users aren't more responsible with their user names and passwords. As the world becomes more and more dependent on computers to control instructors ect. Hopefully this 9 year old has opened the eyes of others to be more careful with this kind of information. Especially those with administrator access. Fabe

 

[Prisoner]

Kinda reminds me of my 8th grade year (last year )
I had to demonstrate to our IT how easy it would be to access accounts on the school network (I used PowerPoint to access her documents, teehee) before she took some action and started really laying heavy on the security. Even then, the network's still not secure. Goes to show how much us kids are learning.