Students suspected of changing grades on hacked school computers Key loggers used at three high schools

Computers at three Seattle public high schools were hacked, and district officials suspect students accessed computers to change grades.

However, the hackers failed to change the grades in the program that would have altered their final grades.

District officials are considering a district-wide password change depending on the depth of the problem. That likely would take four days and could begin Monday.

They're also started grade book changes at one high school, and the audit may widen depending on the scope of the hacking. School officials are also monitoring for unusual activity in their major systems and "evaluating what level of investigation is needed," spokeswoman Teresa Wippel said.

A memo sent to teachers from the Seattle Public Schools technology team states "network login credentials are being stolen and used to inappropriately access district systems."

The effort appears to have gone on for the past few weeks, possibly longer, according to the memo. Though technology staff members are only aware of the problem at Ballard, Ingraham and Chief Sealth high schools, it warns "all schools and teachers are at risk."

A tech staff member was notified by an Ingraham teacher that the some teachers' passwords had been compromised. That's the school where the grade auditing began this week.

Wippel said late Thursday that grades were changed in an online grade book program. School officials know when and from where they were changed, but don't yet know who changed them or exactly how many grades were changed.

The hacks were believed to have been done when someone inserted a device called a key logger into district computers using a USB connection. That recorded keystrokes.

"We know that because these were inserted, passwords were taken so people could get into the system," Wippel said early Thursday. "But we don't know for sure if it was students."

District officials said late Thursday they also hadn't found key loggers.

The memo had said teacher login passwords "were stolen and used to change grade book grades in Easy Grade Pro." It asked staff to check their desktop and presentation computers for unknown devices and to call the district's tech department if a login was compromised.

Teachers also were asked to compare their grades with what's stored in Easy Grade Pro, which records student information but is not the grade program of record.

Grades entered into Easy Grade Pro must be manually entered into eSIS, the program that records final grades.

Tech staff said in the memo is the best immediate option is to visually check the computer for key logging devices. The memo warns that the key logger also captures e-mail messages, Internet URLs and personal account information such as online banking.