Concord, California – Sixteen year old David Rotaro, a student at Ygnacio Valley High School was taken into custody last Wednesday after authorities discovered he was responsible for hacking into the high school’s computer system and changing his grades and several other student’s grades.
“[The suspect] made an e-mail that looked like a Mount Diablo School District site asking to log in to refresh your password or reset something and, when one of the teachers did it, he captured their log-in information,” Concord police Sgt. Carl Cruz explained.
“We believe 10 to 15 students’ grades were changed, but we’re still investigating,” said Concord Police Sergeant Carl Cruz.
The school district contacted police after discovering the breach and CPD called the US Secret Service and also a Contra Costa Country cybercrime task force in effort to help trace the I.P. address used by the hacker used in the emails. They were successfully able to track down the I.P. address back to the residence of Rotaro. In addition, there was use of a electronics-sniffing K-9 discovered the evidence of a USB flash drive that was hidden inside a tissue box.
After being caught by the police, the student admitted to the crime and took a little victory lap, telling ABC7 News “It was like stealing candy from a baby.” He has since been suspended from his school, Ygnacio Valley High School, for the hack. Police released him to his parents while he waits for a court date to be set.
“This is actually very big and probably the most common problem in cybersecurity,” said Rahul Kashyap, the Chief Technology Officer for Cylance, a California-based cybersecurity company.
“It is actually really easy to literally copy a website and make an exact replica of that. In fact there are tools available online where you could something like that in minutes,” said Kashyap.
“The parents were saddened. They know they have a smart son, They were cooperative with us and they were very understanding when we explained everything to them,” said Sgt. Cruz.
A Mount Diablo Unified School District spokeswoman says the student has been suspended.
Sources:
https://gizmodo.com/california-high-schooler-changes-grades-after-phishing-1825996373
https://www.techspot.com/news/74624-california-teen-faces-14-felony-counts-phishing-attack.html
http://www.ktvu.com/news/concord-student-accused-of-hacking-system-to-change-grades-is-arrested