14 DAY TRIAL // A student at the Highland Junior High School in Mesa, Arizona, has hacked the school's email system, gained access to a teacher's account and sent lewd messages to other students, AZFamily reports.
The incident took place during the past week and prompted the school's principal to send an apology letter to all students and their parents.
School officials say the student managed to gain access to the teacher's email login credentials through an unknown method. After the student accessed the teacher's account, he went on to send inappropriate messages to at least two students before the school's content filtering system alerted school IT administrators.
The school's technology department disabled the teacher's account, caught the perpetrator, and then disabled his account as well.
The high school is part of the Gilbert Public Schools District and has recently provided all students with Chromebooks. This might explain how school administrators were able to pick up on the hack and its origin so quickly, Chromebooks being notorious for the granular controls they provide IT network administrators.
Both the FBI and the Mesa Police were called in to investigate the case. The student is a minor and authorities haven't released his name to the public.
Below is a copy of the letter that Highland Junior High School principal Marcie Taylor sent to students and parents.