Thousands of Greenville County students information is at risk, after the district says, a student hacked into their computer system. The district announced the breach Thursday, after a Riverside High School student came forward September 26. The student told officials he was able to bypass the system's security controls, to gain unauthorized access to a file server. In that server, he found other student's names, addresses, social security and Medicaid ID numbers.
Lark Harrison, a 10th grader at the school, and her mother, Lisa, just heard the news. "I am shocked," says Lisa. "You would think the district, knowing they're sitting on all that valuable information, and how critical that is, maybe they would have a little bit more in place." Knowing how savvy kids are on the internet, Lark was less surprised. "It actually doesn't surprise me that much, because kids are keeping up with technology even more than most of our teachers."
According to the district, the student told officials he did not use or distribute the information. He was also ordered to turn over all the downloaded data. Still, it's not enough to calm the Harrison family's fears. They want to know, if a kid could break in, could someone else do it too? "This guy turned himself in, that's how we know," says Lisa. "But if someone hacked in, and got what they wanted and left, how would we know? That's the ones we probably really need to be afraid of."
The school district released a statement Thursday saying, " "While we have no indication that any misuse has occurred, this incident serves as a reminder that data of a confidential, personal nature is stored in computer systems throughout the world and these systems are constantly subjected to attempts at unauthorized entry." Both the district and the Greenville County Sheriff's office are conducting separate investigations, to see if any charges should be filed.
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