14 DAY TRIAL // Three students from the Commack High School in Long Island, NY, hacked into their school's computer system during the summer, changing their grades and altering the class schedule for the upcoming school year.
All started when Daniel Soares, 17, managed to install a simple keylogger on one of the school's administrative computers. Using the data he gathered from the keylogger, an application that records a user's activity on a computer, he hacked into the high school's mainframe, and changed four of his grades (economics, history, and physics), fearing his results from the previous year weren't good enough to help him get into a top college.
Just as you'd expect a 17-years-old teen to do, the first thing he did was to brag about it to two of his friends, Alex Mosquera and Erick Vaysman, both 17.
Both asked Soares to change their grades and tweak their schedule for the upcoming year.
These modifications triggered the school system's defense system, and school staff contacted the Suffolk County police department.
Hacker ran away from home to avoid police
Law enforcement agents eventually traced back the intrusion to Soares' home IP address, and after a search warrant was served on September 2, they decided to indict the teenager on two counts of burglary and three counts of computer tampering and identity theft.
We must mention that, after the September 2 warrant was served, Soares ran away from home for a week, but eventually returned after his family contacted him via Facebook.
Soares' accomplices were also charged, Mosquera with computer trespass and Vaysman with computer tampering. They each face up to 4 years of jail time. For his central role, Soares faces up to 11 years in prison.
The teens were arrested and released on bond after pleading not guilty.
School officials were able to revert all changes made to the school's computer system and the entire affair seems to be a bad version of the "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" '80s movie.