Compliance Management, Threat Management, Malware, Privacy

Panther Creek senior arrested for hacking school, changing grades

Authorities arrested a Panther Creek High senior who is accused of hacking into a computer system last fall and changing students' grades between Oct. 6-22, 2015.

Seventeen-year-old Saivamsi Krishna Hanumanthu was nabbed on Wednesday for the hack, which school officials discovered and reported to Cary, N.C., police on Oct. 13. IT pros at the school found that a hacker had embedded a keystroke logger in an email sent by a teacher to the Panther Creek data manager and could capture typed in login information.

The investigation quickly pointed to the teen when a teacher spotted him on a laptop computer in a darkened classroom, according to The News & Observer. Hanumanthu changed 90 grades, 45 of them his own, and by improving his grade elevated his class ranking from 67th to seventh. He faces felony and misdemeanor charges of accessing government computers as well as a felony count for breaking and entering.

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