14 DAY TRIAL // A 15-year-old teenager from Ontario has been arrested and charged with criminal offenses after breaking into Thames Valley District school board's website and exposing the passwords of thousands of students.
The kid made headlines in the local press two weeks ago, after he openly admitted to the hack. He claims that he did it in order to make a point, after teachers failed to listen to his warnings about the student portal being insecure.
"I did it to prove to people that their information isn’t as secure as they think, and so they should use different passwords for things, and to get the message across that the website was insecure, because the teachers sure didn’t listen to me," he wrote on Facebook.
Posting a list of passwords belonging to 27,000 high school students online, was clearly not a good idea, as it got the teenage hacker suspended indefinitely from school and arrested.
Many of the affected students took the issue lightly and others declared themselves impressed by the teenager's hacking skills.
"The severity of hacking into someone's computer can't be tolerated and should not be looked upon as being idolized," London Police Service media officer Constable Dennis Rivest commented for the London Free Press.
He was charged with intercepting a computer function, fraudulently obtaining computing services, using a computer with intent to commit a computer offense and using a password to commit a computer offense.
Under normal circumstances, these charges carry a maximum combined punishment of ten years in prison. However, in cases involving minors judges have broad discretion over sentencing.
The biggest concern following the breach was that students might have used the compromised passwords for other online services as well. At least one girl reported that her Facebook account was hijacked and abused by unknown individuals, as a result of the incident.
Update November 3: Amended the article to reflect that Constable Dennis Rivest is the media officer for the "London Police Service," the police force of City of London, Ontario, Canada, and not the "City of London Police," which is the police force of City of London, England, UK.