Students under arrest after hacking into computer system to change grades

Friday 3:45 p.m. – Update

Court records outline details of three students accused of changing grades in an elaborate case. 

With a total of 58 charges between the three students, Roy Sun received 13 counts of charges, Mitsutoshi Shirasaki received 20 and Sujay Sharma received 13. 

The charges were a combination of Class C and D felonies and Class A misdemeanors.

It is alleged that Shirasaki's girlfriend Xiaonan Jing, an undergraduate in the College of Science, may have been involved in the case. Jing's grades were also changed as one of her classes, a Japanese class from Fall 2012, from an A to an A+, by Shirasaki, according to court records. 

The students are of accused breaking into a number of classrooms and computer labs from October 2009 to March 2013, but they also purchased locks from Wal-Mart and practiced picking them.

Court documents indicate, the students took turns practicing picking locks, standing as lookouts, breaking into the computer labs, placing keyloggers into keyboards and cutting wires in keyboards. They then are accused of accessing keystroke information from the keyboards and use this to enter professors' login information into computer systems. 

In March of 2013, Sun and Shirasaki exchanged telephone calls expressing the possibility of the police tracing the crimes back to them and the need to get rid of evidence, which is believed they did around Tippecanoe County. Sun was also concerned the Sharma had too much information and "coudn't keep his mouth shut." 

Sun graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor's of Science in Electrical Engineering and is currently at Boston University as a graduate student.  

A number of professors were involved in the grade changes from several colleges in the University: Liberal Arts, Engineering and Science. 

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Three students have been involved in hacking into a professor’s computer and changing the grades they had received, which has resulted in two arrests and a lengthy investigation.

Two current engineering students, Sujay Sharma and Mitsutoshi Shirasaki, have been arrested by the Purdue University Police Department (PUPD) on a lengthy list of charges from burglary, to computer tampering, to forgery. Former student, Roy Sun, is also involved in the case. Sun is now a graduate student at Boston University. He is currently in his home country of Japan and his future has yet to be determined.

The case arose in January when a Purdue professor alerted Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP) that his University account password had been changed, along with the security question he had set. This is when he also noticed that grades had been changed from previous semesters.

The three students somehow switched the keyboards in an ITaP computer lab that a professor used received information from there to change the grades. The exact methods the student used to hack into the system and change the grades is still under investigation.

Grade changes were as subtle as A to A+ and as drastic as D’s to A’s, yet the motives behind these actions are unclear.

John Cox, police chief for PUPD, said the police have been working with ITaP, the FBI, Boston University Police Department and the case prosecutor Pat Harrington to investigate the situation since January. Cox said that this case was the first of this magnitude.

“This was no outside attack,” Cox said. “This was (done by) some students who were very smart and used their knowledge and wisdom to do something they shouldn’t have.”

Cox said there has been an internal audit to check for “anomalies” to make sure this was an isolated event over the last few years.

“There are thousands of grade changes every year in the system,” Cox said. “To see there were 30-something grades that were changed that’s unfortunate, you don’t want one grade changed like that ... It was the biggest case like that, that we’ve ever seen so far.”

Sharma and Shirasaki are no longer enrolled at Purdue and their grades have been changed back to reflect what each student had originally received. They also face local and state charges for the grade changes.

According to Jeff Stefancic, associate dean for the Office of Rights and Responsibilities, the University is still looking at Roy’s status as he is no longer a Purdue student.

“We can examine a student’s graduation status and potentially revoke a degree that was granted if the situation warrants it. That’s currently under our administrative review right now,” Stefancic said.

Cox said that ITaP is working to increase security and make it more challenging to get into the system, but that work is done every day by ITaP, not in response to this case.

“It gets a little tougher when you start having things like iPads and laptops floating around out there ... working wirelessly. We’ve done an awful lot with ITaP and ITaP has done a really nice job of working with that,” Cox said.

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Police arrest four suspected Anonymous hacktivists

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Police say that they have arrested four people, in connection with a series of Anonymous internet attacks against Spanish websites.

The four, who were arrested in Madrid and Malaga, are said to be affiliated with the loosely-knit Anonymous hacktivist group, and are suspected of involvement in a series of attacks against the websites of Spanish political parties, companies and the Spanish police force.

Websites were not just hit by denial-of-service attacks, but in some cases were also defaced and had information stolen from them.

Political websites like that of the 'Union Progress and Democracy' party (UpyD), for instance, were infiltrated and replaced with images of people bearing vampire-like fangs.

One of those arrested by police, who they claim went by the internet handles of 'Thunder' or 'Pacotron', is alleged to have been responsible for managing the IT infrastructure used by Anonymous in Spain and Latin America.

The group is said to have communicated via internet chat servers based in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria but managed from Spain by 'Thunder', which have now been shut down.

Spanish police have searched four addresses, and seized 25 computers and other storage devices for examination. No doubt they are hoping to uncover evidence which may lead to more arrests, or help with the case against the Anonymous suspects they have detained.

In addition to the arrests in Spain, ten Anonymous suspects were also indicted in Argentina, six in Chile and five in Colombia, according to a Spanish police press release.

Once again, those responsible for administering websites are reminded to take security seriously - ensuring that sensitive data is securely encrypted, and that websites are built with security in mind, and are not vulnerable to attacks that could leave them embarrassingly exposed.

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British police arrest alleged hacker - Albany Times Union

LONDON -- The police in Britain arrested a 19-year-old man in connection with digital attacks on businesses and government agencies "by a single hacking group," the Metropolitan Police said Tuesday in a statement.

The police did not identify the man (Deutsche Presse-Agentur said his name was Ryan Cleary) or the hacking organization. Suspicion immediately fell on two groups: Anonymous, a shadowy international network of computer hackers, and Lulz Security, a group that has claimed responsibility in recent weeks for attacks on the websites of the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Senate as well as Sony and, on Monday, the website of a British agency that combats organized crime.

The arrest resulted from a joint investigation by a British cybercrime unit, local police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into attacks on "a number of international business and intelligence agencies," the police said, without naming specific targets.

The British police said man was being questioned in a London police station and was suspected of violating several British computer and fraud laws. After his arrest, they said, officers searched a home in Wickford, about 35 miles north of London, and turned up material that police said was under examination.

They said the search was conducted late Monday night.

Attacks this spring on the websites of several companies, including Sony and Bethesda Softworks, a gaming site, exploited holes in Internet security systems that are meant to protect hundreds of thousands of private user accounts. In a letter posted last week, Lulz Security said that it was now teaming with Anonymous. "Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments."

Lulz Security seemed to dismiss speculation that one of its hackers had been the target of the British arrest.

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Teen hacker's arrest just the tip of the iceberg - Herald Sun

The dire analysis from Australian computer security experts came as UK police arrested a teenager believed responsible for a string of recent hacking attacks. Source: Getty Images

THE world is in the grip of a "techno arms race" between computer hackers and authorities.

The dire analysis from Australian computer security experts came as UK police arrested a teenager believed responsible for a string of recent hacking attacks, including the highly publicised strike on Sony's online games network.

Ryan Cleary, 19, is believed to have masterminded a global computer hacking plot from his suburban bedroom.

The alleged cyber saboteur was nabbed yesterday in a combined operation by the FBI and Scotland Yard.

The teen is believed to be a "major player" with computer hacking group Lulz Security, wanted for attacks on targets ranging from the CIA and US Senate to Nintendo and Sony.

The attacks on Sony, which began in April, forced it to shut down its online games network.

It later revealed hackers had stolen the personal details of millions of members.

A tug of war has developed between British and US prosecutors, who both want a piece of the university student described by neighbours as "very bright".

Robert McAdam, chief of security firm Pure Hacking, said the arrest was a significant victory for authorities in the escalating battle against increasingly sophisticated hackers intent on causing global mayhem.

"When you are the focus of investigators, you will get done," he said.

Limited resources meant computer security experts could not be everywhere at once and hackers were not only getter better, but bolder as a result.

"This really is a techno arms race," he said. "Except this time instead of graduating from throwing rocks to bullets and bombs, technology is the weapon and it's growing exponentially."

Mr McAdam, a former NSW policeman, said there was only one motive to explain the activities of hackers once money was taken out of the equation.

"Significance," he said.

"What you have is someone who desperately wants to demonstrate a level of importance to their peers. It's as simple as that."

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