Students who can’t hack it should study

Marisa O’Neil

Students at a local high school are wondering why anyone would risk

hacking into the computer system just to change their grades.

So far, one 17-year-old boy faces felony charges in connection

with grades that were changed illegally for seven students at Corona

del Mar High School. The junior was placed on a five-day suspension

by the school district while police investigate the matter.

More arrests in the case are possible, Newport Beach Police Sgt.

Steve Shulman said.

“It’s shocking,” freshman Amber Peck said. “Why don’t you just

study instead of changing your grades? And then you don’t have to

worry about being caught.”

District officials discovered the changes last week and reported

them to the police. They believe the student or students gained

access to the system remotely, district spokeswoman Jane Garland

said.

Police arrested the boy at school on Monday and released him into

his parents’ custody. But the excitement and scuttlebutt at the

school seem to have died down, said freshman Jessika Kelly, who

hadn’t heard about the arrest.

She said most students she has spoken to were surprised to hear

about it.

“I think it was really stupid,” she said. “Why don’t you just

study for a test? If you cheat you won’t learn anything. That’s why

we go to school, [to learn].”

Employees in the district’s technology department would not

comment on the case because of the ongoing investigation. But the

school’s server was replaced and holes in the system were plugged to

prevent further problems, Garland said.

It would take someone with extensive computer knowledge to get

around typical security precautions in a school’s computer system,

said Kenneth Kraemer, director of information systems at UC Irvine’s

Graduate School of Management.

Some students have a natural knack for computer hacking, while

others pick it up from family and friends, or from online chats with

other hackers.

But the education students get on computers to prepare them for

the workforce can lay the groundwork for more nefarious uses.

“Unfortunately, schools become training grounds for kids to learn

these capabilities,” Kraemer said. “As computer literacy goes further

down, our kids are learning how to do these things.”

Besides changing grades, the hackers also deleted more than 1,000

files that had information about the grades and other personal

information such as students’ names and addresses, which were later

recovered. Students are lucky the hacker didn’t take advantage of the

breach to plant a worm or other destructive program in the system,

Kraemer said.

Police and other institutions are cracking down on cyber crimes

because the potential for harm is so great, he said.

The boy faces charges of unauthorized alteration of computerized

data, Shulman said. Prosecutors will decide whether to charge the boy

as a juvenile or an adult.

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.