Students Hacking Universities: National Security Threat

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

Academic institutions are easy targets since many do not invest in sophisticated IT personnel or employ the latest cybersecurity programs. Some students have noticed this, and more and more universities are facing a new hacking problem: students hacking their professors’ computers in order to improve their grades.

Last year, a cyberattack on the Arizona school district, which has about 265,000 students enrolled in courses annually in ten community colleges, could have compromised 2.5 million Social Security and banks account numbers belonging to students, former students, and employees. Colleges and universities are typically open communities where “it wouldn’t be uncommon to walk into an academic setting at a university and see a professor’s door wide open while he went to get some coffee.”

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

Today, academic institutions must adopt tougher security measures to prevent student hackers from accessing faculty computer systems in order to change grades or obtain exam documents. According to HLS News Wire In almost every case of student hacking, the students stole professors’ passwords using a keystroke logger; the devices are widely available online.

Israeli experts told iHLS that the vulnerability of the academic computer systems is far more dangerous as in many cases the professors are involved in work related to national security.