{"id":2639,"date":"2010-04-24T12:46:13","date_gmt":"2010-04-24T16:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbachnet.wwwmi3-ss40.a2hosted.com\/?p=2639"},"modified":"2022-08-27T13:28:50","modified_gmt":"2022-08-27T17:28:50","slug":"9-year-old-hacks-school-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/9-year-old-hacks-school-system\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Year Old Hacks School System"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"9<\/a>ComputerWorld<\/em><\/a> reports that officials at Fairfax County Public Schools<\/a> thought they had a hacker on their hands<\/strong>. It was reported<\/a> that someone was changing teacher passwords on the Falls Church, Virginia<\/a>, school district’s Blackboard<\/strong> system. Blackboard<\/a> (BBBB<\/a>) gives teachers, students, and parents a way to communicate and stay on top of homework assignments and class announcements over the Web. Blackboard\u2019s website says more than 5,000 K-12 and higher-education institutions nationwide use its software.<\/p>\n

\"Blackboard<\/a>The District contacted local authorities when teachers and staff members reported their passwords were changed preventing access to their accounts because according to ComputerWorld<\/em>. Changes to content and enrollment information for some courses was also discovered. The local police investigated and pulled a search warrant for Cox Communications<\/a>, the Washington Post<\/a><\/em> reports<\/a>. They traced the\u00a0 IP address which accessed the Blackboard system to the McLean, Virginia<\/a> physical address of the home of a 9-year-old student<\/strong> in Fairfax County Public Schools. The police initially suspected the student’s mother, but after interrogating both of them it became clear that the child was to blame.<\/p>\n

Turns out that the Blackboard system was not hacked. The student had simply taken a teacher’s password from a desk and used it<\/strong> to change enrollment lists and other teachers’ passwords. “This was a case where an individual … got hold of a teacher’s password, and the passwords had administrative rights<\/strong>,<\/em>” said Paul Regnier, a school board representative. “It was actually not a hack, unless you consider the 9-year-old<\/strong> took the teacher’s username and password from the desk a hack,<\/em>” said Michael Stanton, Blackboard’s senior vice president of corporate affairs. Although there will be no criminal charges filed against the perpetrator, citing school policy, Regnier wouldn’t confirm that it is a student, the Fairfax school board is taking the incident seriously, Regnier said. “Nothing bad happened this time, but we have to make sure that … it doesn’t happen again,<\/em>” he said.<\/p>\n

rb-<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

T\"Password<\/a>his event correlated with the recent (04\/14\/2010) Tufin Technologies<\/a> survey results of the hacking habits of 1,000 New York City teenagers. The survey found<\/a> that 39% of the teens surveyed think hacking is “cool” and 16%, or roughly one in six, admitted to trying their hand at it. Only 15% of the entire sample has either been caught or knows someone who has – particularly disturbing considering 7% of young hackers reported they did so for money and 6% view it as a viable career path. <\/em><\/p>\n

The big lesson here is, of course, SECURE YOUR PASSWORDS<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ralph Bach<\/a>\u00a0has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his\u00a0Bach Seat<\/a> about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn<\/a>,\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0Twitter<\/a>. Email the Bach Seat\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 9-year-old VA boy took a school teachers username and password from the desk and made unauthorized changes to a Blackboard system<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3240,181,128,209,4,1844],"class_list":["post-2639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security","tag-3240","tag-blackboard","tag-k12","tag-password","tag-security","tag-weak"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t