How is it possible for a student to hack an electronic diary, get inside and correct grades on behalf of the teacher? There are already viruses and programs on the Internet that infect teachers' computers, and so students not only manage to log into their accounts, but also sell their passwords in secret Telegram groups. Why does it get there and where is the weak link in the system?
This was revealed by "New Television".
The scheme reveals a student whose name has been changed - Hristo. Agrees anonymously to tell how it is possible to log into a teacher's profile and correct grades in his electronic journal.
„I was correcting my grades, erasing remarks, apologizing for absences, both to me and to my classmates. I was not on very good terms with my class, which led to being on the verge of expulsion. However, right when she requested that I go to counselling, I just walked in and deleted my notes on her. And the director rejected her request”, he says.
„The practice is massive. At my school, I'm not the only one with access. "I know a lot of people who take money for this," the boy said.
The unofficial price list is as follows– a corrected estimate costs about BGN 50. We enter one of those Telegram groups where a student brags about hacking his history teacher's profile and is yet to change grades.
However, how does this happen, and is it possible for it to happen without a person having any hacking skills whatsoever?
„It is elementary. It's a piece of work. Anyone who is adequate enough to be able to turn on the computer can handle it, Hristo also points out.
The boy says that it is enough for a student to have 1 minute of access to the teacher's computer, to install a program that automatically records every keystroke. This program sends the username and password for the e-journal.
„This is a program that records every single click on the keyboard. The only thing you need to set is where you will receive the information, explains Hristo.
And the price for such a program is obviously temptingly low and ranges from 10 to 20 euros. We turn to cyber expert Simeon Nguyen, who knows all the tricks of the hacker. “The weak link, as in most cases with cyber-attacks, is the people, as they are not aware of the possible threats, of what could happen if someone gets access to their computer. One option is to have access to the computer and release the virus. Students have to present something at school - click twice, open – a virus. The other is if, the student makes the teacher open some file, for example a presentation, a flash drive, they are sent word or excel files that contain viruses. You just have to click the file twice, and that's it,”, he explains.
However, the Ministry of Education says that they are not aware of such a practice among students. They allow schools to use several different electronic diaries. Hristo has tried to break through all of them and says that in some of them there is one main weakness – there is no trace of who changed, added or deleted a rating from where and when. And that's exactly what the students benefit from.
„That's pretty bad. There should be some kind of audit trail – to know who, at what time he logged in, from which IP, what changes he made – it all has to be trackable, because otherwise you lose a pretty serious element of distinctness. It's nice to have multi-factor authentication, where when you try to log-in you get an SMS or you have to go into an app where you enter the code. So even if someone finds out your username and password and tries to log into your account – not succeed, because he will send you an SMS”, advises the cyber expert.