Commack School in Long Island, N.Y., is dealing with a hacking situation in which three 17-year-old students, Daniel Soares, Alex Mosquera and Erick Vaysman, have been arrested for a crime straight out of the movies.
The Suffolk County Police say that computer science club member Soares was the "mastermind" of the operation and apparently sneaked into an unlocked classroom after hours in May, installing a device known as a "key log" that could record the computer's keystrokes, giving him access to user names and passwords. Soares allegedly repeated his misadventure in June, reports New York magazine.
After gaining access to the school's computers, Soares changed at least four of his scores, taking them from a 94 percent to a 100 percent. Soares then changed a grade for his accomplice Vaysman. When Mosquera, the third accused, asked Soares to find out the schedule of one student, Soares went ahead and altered the schedules for more than 300 students. It was in July that the school realized that its systems had been tampered with. Prolonged investigations led the police to Soares in September.
"At this point, we believe Daniel changes four of his own grades...on his own grade was changed from a 94 to a hundred perfect score," said Detective Sgt. John Best of the Suffolk County Police Department, reports CBS News.
"We are waiting for a full investigation to be done. He maintains his innocence," said Soares' attorney, George Duncan, according to CBS News.
"Once the breach was discovered, password protection safeguards and network protocols prevented further access to the data management system, and no further private or personal information was accessed," read a statement by the Commack school district, according to the New York Daily News.
"He seemed like a normal kid. He must have been scared about college and wanted good grades. They are not troublemakers," Sydney Pasquarellito, a 16-year-old Commack student, told the Daily News.
The students face between four to 11 years in prison if found guilty.
