A 17-year-old student in America has been arrested and charged with illegally accessing government computers, months after the data breach took place.
Saivamsi Krishna Hanumanthu, a Panther Creek High senior, is alleged to have entered into the school’s computer system in October, 2015. It is thought he manipulated student grades, including 45 his own.
According to the News & Observer, this resulted in his academic standing improving dramatically - he went from 67th in his class ranking to seventh.
It was reported that Saivamsi was able to bypass security through a keystroke logger program, which he had surreptitiously embedded in an email to one of his teachers.
The online news provider said that the warrant for his arrest revealed that most of the changes to the grades took place within the school - the IP address belonged to a Panther Creek High computer.
However, it was discovered that at least one of the changes was made from a computer at a library outside of the school, where Saivamsi volunteered.
The student has since been bailed and, for now, remains a student at Panther Creek High.
This story has highlighted the importance of investing in good security solutions, as well as emphasize the need for academic institutions to treat cybercrime seriously.
As a recent case in point, the University of Central Florida (UCF) recently revealed that it was the victim of a data breach.
The compromise has affected up to 63,000 current and former students and members of staff.
“We have already begun taking several actions to help prevent this type of incident from occurring in the future,” UCF stated.
“These actions include enhancing user account and password security and expanding campus-wide information security education and training.”
