14 DAY TRIAL // Jose Bautista, 18, a senior student at the Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School in Miami-Dade, Florida, has been arrested and charged after hacking into the school’s databases to change grades and other information.
According to CBS, the youth changed not only his grades, but also the ones of other four students whom he had approached between the beginning of the year and February. Bautista was reported to the police by the school’s principal, who got a written confession from the student.
The teen has been charged with four counts related to offenses against intellectual property, and four counts of offenses against computer users.
He has been released on bond, but the judge has placed him under house arrest with a GPS monitor.
Bautista’s lawyer believes that his client shouldn’t face four counts because there’s “nothing specifically alleged as to the number of times this was allegedly done,” WSVN reported.
It’s uncertain at this point what measures the school will take against the hacker and the other students whose grades he has changed.
It’s also unclear how Bautista managed to change the grades. However, based on previous incidents, he has either used a keylogger or a piece of malware to obtain a password, or found a vulnerability in the system that enabled him to gain unauthorized access to the website.
Update. NBC reports that Bautista broke into the principal's office and stole the password needed to change the grades.