Pflugerville ISD students charged with intrusion
Technorati Tag: Security Breach
Date Reported:
1/26/09
Organization:
Pflugerville Independent School District
Contractor/Consultant/Branch:
None
Location:
Pflugerville, Texas
Victims:
Staff and students
Number Affected:
Unknown
Types of Data:
"all of the Pflugerville Independent School District security files which contained passwords, alarm codes, staff personal information, school tests etc."
Breach Description:
"Two Pflugerville teenagers are charged with hacking into their school districts computer system. Investigators say they gained access to personal information, alarm codes, tests, even grades."
Reference URL:
KEYE Channel 42 News
KVUE TV News
Report Credit:
KEYE Channel 42 News
Response:
From the online sources cited above:
Two students admit they hacked into Pflugerville ISD school computers and got access to sensitive information, according to an arrest affidavit.
[Evan] How much "hacking" do you think was really involved in this incident? It's more likely that one of the two students found a username and password somewhere. Maybe an admin or teacher wrote their username and password down on a Post-It note. Wait! That could never happen!
Two Pflugerville teenagers are charged with hacking into their school districts computer system. Investigators say they gained access to personal information, alarm codes, tests, even grades.
[Evan] Should personal information be segregated from tests and grades?
Police say the student hackers, both 18, broke into the Pflugerville Independent School District's security system back in early December.
neither the district nor investigators would go into the specifics of how the students managed to hack their way in
[Evan] It might be embarrassing.
we're told that within 24 hours of the unauthorized break-in, the district's technology staff recognized what had happened and notified police
[Evan] I wonder how staff detected the intrusion. Later on, we read that the students created a "ghost account". Maybe the staff noticed the new account.
On Dec. 4, Nelson Coulter, principal of Hendrickson High school, notified Pflugerville police school district employees discovered a computer breach and traced it back to the students.
Students at Hendrickson High School were stunned to learn that fellow students Kelton Gilmore and Joshua Cook have been arrested
"I thought he got in there just to change a few grades or something, I didn't know about this," said Brett Caswell, a senior at Hendrickson.
According to the arrest affidavit, Kelton and Josha gained access to all of the Pflugerville Independent School District security files which contained passwords, alarm codes, staff personal information, school tests etc.
[Evan] One account, all the keys to the kingdom? Domain admin account?
"I'm not exactly sure what their intent was by establishing that, from something as innocent as boredom to something that could be even more destructive to the school district, but the bottom line is they did not have access or authorization to access that particular area and there was confidential information that has to be safeguarded," said William Edwards, the Pflugerville ISD Police Chief.
[Evan] Kids and teens with time on their hands are going to find something to do and usually its something meant to gain some excitement. How do we challenge kids in a fun way?
Cook and Gilmore told school leaders they created the “ghost account” but didn’t say if they used the information, the affidavit said.
Edwards says one of the reasons the school district decided to press charges was the more than 45-hundred dollars it cost to repair the security damage caused by the student hackers.
"Just by having that sheer access to the administrative account, they had to go in and put safeguards back in, to change security codes and alarm codes throughout the district were changed, that was a fairly large undertaking," Edwards said.
[Evan] Let's hope that the ISD didn't put the same safeguards back in. The old ones didn't work.
The state felony charge means Gilmore and Cook could receive anywhere from 3-months to 2-years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Investigators say it's important to point out that even though the student hackers could have changed any of their grades or test scores as well as those of other students, they did not.
Commentary:
Every time I read about a breach involving teens who gain unauthorized access to their school's information resources, I feel a little torn.
Think about this for a second. I have kids and I keep a pretty close eye on them. I know that they do some dumb things when they are bored. The things they do when they are bored aren't the same things they do when they have something to occupy their time. Boredom may be part of the problem in this incident.
A second part of the problem might be what and how our kids learn. We can all agree that we live in a different time from when we were kids. Technology seems to drive everything. Where do our kids learn good (and ethical) computing habits? School? The only class taught in our high school is HTML. Parents? Most of the parents I know are less tech-savvy than their kids, and many of the parents that are tech-savvy are too busy. Self-taught? Maybe. Friends? Probably. Teaching yourself information technology without a mentor can go either way (good or bad), and teenage friends may have their own motives.
I present two factors that I think contribute to the problem. One solution that I support and for which I am trying to help is teaching kids good (and ethical) computing habits. What classes does your school teach? Is there an opportunity for you to get involved?
Past Breaches:
Unknown
Date Reported:1/26/09
Organization:
Pflugerville Independent School District
Contractor/Consultant/Branch:
None
Location:
Pflugerville, Texas
Victims:
Staff and students
Number Affected:
Unknown
Types of Data:
"all of the Pflugerville Independent School District security files which contained passwords, alarm codes, staff personal information, school tests etc."
Breach Description:
"Two Pflugerville teenagers are charged with hacking into their school districts computer system. Investigators say they gained access to personal information, alarm codes, tests, even grades."
Reference URL:
KEYE Channel 42 News
KVUE TV News
Report Credit:
KEYE Channel 42 News
Response:
From the online sources cited above:
Two students admit they hacked into Pflugerville ISD school computers and got access to sensitive information, according to an arrest affidavit.
[Evan] How much "hacking" do you think was really involved in this incident? It's more likely that one of the two students found a username and password somewhere. Maybe an admin or teacher wrote their username and password down on a Post-It note. Wait! That could never happen!
Two Pflugerville teenagers are charged with hacking into their school districts computer system. Investigators say they gained access to personal information, alarm codes, tests, even grades.
[Evan] Should personal information be segregated from tests and grades?
Police say the student hackers, both 18, broke into the Pflugerville Independent School District's security system back in early December.
neither the district nor investigators would go into the specifics of how the students managed to hack their way in
[Evan] It might be embarrassing.
we're told that within 24 hours of the unauthorized break-in, the district's technology staff recognized what had happened and notified police
[Evan] I wonder how staff detected the intrusion. Later on, we read that the students created a "ghost account". Maybe the staff noticed the new account.
On Dec. 4, Nelson Coulter, principal of Hendrickson High school, notified Pflugerville police school district employees discovered a computer breach and traced it back to the students.
Students at Hendrickson High School were stunned to learn that fellow students Kelton Gilmore and Joshua Cook have been arrested
"I thought he got in there just to change a few grades or something, I didn't know about this," said Brett Caswell, a senior at Hendrickson.
According to the arrest affidavit, Kelton and Josha gained access to all of the Pflugerville Independent School District security files which contained passwords, alarm codes, staff personal information, school tests etc.
[Evan] One account, all the keys to the kingdom? Domain admin account?
"I'm not exactly sure what their intent was by establishing that, from something as innocent as boredom to something that could be even more destructive to the school district, but the bottom line is they did not have access or authorization to access that particular area and there was confidential information that has to be safeguarded," said William Edwards, the Pflugerville ISD Police Chief.
[Evan] Kids and teens with time on their hands are going to find something to do and usually its something meant to gain some excitement. How do we challenge kids in a fun way?
Cook and Gilmore told school leaders they created the “ghost account” but didn’t say if they used the information, the affidavit said.
Edwards says one of the reasons the school district decided to press charges was the more than 45-hundred dollars it cost to repair the security damage caused by the student hackers.
"Just by having that sheer access to the administrative account, they had to go in and put safeguards back in, to change security codes and alarm codes throughout the district were changed, that was a fairly large undertaking," Edwards said.
[Evan] Let's hope that the ISD didn't put the same safeguards back in. The old ones didn't work.
The state felony charge means Gilmore and Cook could receive anywhere from 3-months to 2-years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Investigators say it's important to point out that even though the student hackers could have changed any of their grades or test scores as well as those of other students, they did not.
Commentary:
Every time I read about a breach involving teens who gain unauthorized access to their school's information resources, I feel a little torn.
Think about this for a second. I have kids and I keep a pretty close eye on them. I know that they do some dumb things when they are bored. The things they do when they are bored aren't the same things they do when they have something to occupy their time. Boredom may be part of the problem in this incident.
A second part of the problem might be what and how our kids learn. We can all agree that we live in a different time from when we were kids. Technology seems to drive everything. Where do our kids learn good (and ethical) computing habits? School? The only class taught in our high school is HTML. Parents? Most of the parents I know are less tech-savvy than their kids, and many of the parents that are tech-savvy are too busy. Self-taught? Maybe. Friends? Probably. Teaching yourself information technology without a mentor can go either way (good or bad), and teenage friends may have their own motives.
I present two factors that I think contribute to the problem. One solution that I support and for which I am trying to help is teaching kids good (and ethical) computing habits. What classes does your school teach? Is there an opportunity for you to get involved?
Past Breaches:
Unknown
Posts Atom 1.0
Hi I'm good friends with josh and Kelton, I'm a senior at the same school, josh and I were in the same Ap computer Science class, well the media didn't cover the real story, first this is not the first time they breached in, around April 2008 they had done the same thing they got caught sent to the opportunity center and were readmitted at HHS after the summer was over, Josh stayed on the low, but Kelton went around checking if the admins had really clean all traces that they left there during their raid, and in reality they didn't, they only updated the security system (which is the Novel synchronized eyes and such)over the summer and upgraded all teacher computers. On that they kelton gave the account to Josh, josh looked at it and saw a fill possibilities, but didn't mess with it much but Kelton accessed all he could without regards which I would have probably done the same, some of the tools they used last year were simply to get around the many windows blocks and a couple to get around novel security.
Josh is suppose to come back to attend our school after spring break, Kelton will be attending Pflugerville High school(which is already famous for the 4chan bomb treat 1 year ago) and life will go on...
As to your question our school is pretty ok with technology We have many computer science classes(java based) Many Basic courses too such as BIMM and BCIS
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