Data Breach Sunday: 15 Year Old Gains Access to Teachers’ And Taxpayers Info

June 1, 2008

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I don’t really remember what I was up to at 15 years old, but I am pretty sure it was not breaking into my school’s computer files and accessing personal information.

However, that is exactly what an enterprising young lad from Downington, PA did on May 9.

Officials discovered (how is not released yet), that the kid had gained access to teachers’ Social Security, addresses, and their actual W2 forms (yikes).

All in all, there were 71 teachers that were impacted, but there was also apparently Social Security Numbers and other information for “thousands of school district taxpayers”.

What kind of system could this kid have gotten into that has that kind of information?

So far there has been no reports of any identity theft activity, but the student did share the info with some other classmates. Even though the flash drive that the information was on has been recovered, who knows where this stuff has ended up.

How could a school be so lax as to allow a 15 year old to get this kind of information? A comment on the Breach Blog post about this case is interesting:

I can personally attest that the schools technology administration is incompetent, i met with the asst. director of techology and he knew absolutely nothing pertaining to information technology, the kid in question accesed files that were UNPROTECTED and the administration now must lie to save themselves. its really sad they are telling the teachers and people that he “hacked” he just accesed the unprotected information. the administration should be prosecuted. people need to know the real story.

Obviously who knows if this guy is legit, but interesting nonetheless.

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer via Breach Blog

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