It sounds like something from the movies, but there have been several incidents in the last few months of High School students hacking into their schools’ computer systems to change grades.

In New Jersey, three Haddonfield Memorial High School students used keystroke capture software to get passwords that allowed them into secure areas of the schools computer system where they changed their grades.  In California, a Tesoro High School student hacked into a database to change grades for himself and other students, and at Winston Churchill High School in Maryland, several students stole password and tampered with grades.  And at Ocean Lakes High School in Virginia, a student was caught printing a list of names, ID numbers, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of other students from the schools computer system.

It’s a typical problem for school administrators.  Students have a much better grasp of technology and it’s inherent strengths and weaknesses than the majority of adults do.  So it’s important for school officials to maintain good working relationships with the district IT folks and for instructors to keep a close eye on students using school computers while maintaining open communication between students and teachers.

It’s also important for parents to monitor what their children are accessing on the Internet from home.

Technology can help at the schools.  Something as simple as using different background colors of student and faculty computer screens and pages will make it obvious at glance where a student has logged in to, or providing faculty with information when they login of the last several login attempts can also help identify accounts that have been tampered with.  There are many ways schools can help to reduce the risks and opportunities for students to hack their systems.

At home, there are also a number of ways parents can monitor computer usage, from the installation of “Nanyware” to using routers with built-in web proxies and filters.  But probably the easiest and quickest way would be to move the computer into the most trafficked room of the house, either the kitchen or family room, so it’s easy to simply glance at the screen while walking past.