Concord Police Arrest Juvenile Who Hacked Into MDUSD Network, Changing Grades

The Concord Police Department announced Thursday that a juvenile was arrested after he allegedly hacked into the Mount Diablo School District to change grades of multiple students.

Per Concord Police, on April 25, they were notified by the Mount Diablo School District in regards to a potential network intrusion on their system. Investigation into the incident revealed one teacher clicked on a “phishing” email and provided her credentials to an unknown hacker in the process.

Police explained that the hacker then used the teacher’s credentials to log into a school system to change the grades of numerous students. Further investigation showed the hacker appeared to have only changed the grades of students and it appeared no personally identifiable information was stolen.

Photo provided by Concord Police

An arrest was made on May 9 with the assistance of the US Secret Service, Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office, and the Contra Costa County Sheriff. The name of the arrestee is not being released because he is a juvenile.

Concord Police credited “Dug”, a trained Electronic Detection K9 with the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office. Dug is trained to locate hidden electronic devices and he located an SD card hidden in a tissue box that a normal person might not have checked.