14 DAY TRIAL // We all dreamed of a way to modify our grades when we were in high-school because learning was too boring for us. But when you take attitude and break into your school's computers to do that, you might have a surprise: if you're caught, you might spend your next 20 years in prison. I guess you would prefer to spend your next few years in a new high-school than going to jail but here's what happened to two men from California. PC World reported that John Escalera, 29-year-old and Gustavo Razo, 28-year-old, hacked into the California State University computers to modify their grades.
It seems like Escalera is the one who managed to break into the system but he also modified the grades for his friend who paid cash for the malicious action. But what do you know? After the school authorities managed to identify them, the two men got accused of identity theft, unauthorized computer access and many other malicious actions which could provide them with a $250,000 fine and 20 years in prison.
According to the indictment published by CSO, Escalera hacked a supervisor computer to get the access to his grades. "Utilizing these newly acquired and elevated access rights defendant Escalara was able to obtain access to protected databases and acquire computer data which included user names and passwords for other Fresno State employees. These protected databases were obtained by defendant Escalera in an undeciphered format. Once he acquired this data, he vas able to use computer software which deciphered the computer data and allowed him to acquire the user name and accompanying password for certain employees," the indictment explains the entire hacking process.
The grades were modified remotely from a computer outside the campus. The school officials noticed the changes when the university decided to migrate from SIMS/R to the PeopleSoft technology which could provide better organization and management of their database.