FBI investigates Santa Clara University hack which changed exam grades

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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The FBI is investigating a hack against Santa Clara University’s computer system, after someone broke into the network and changed the grades of some undergraduate students.

Officials at the University say that they have reviewed tens of thousands of records dating back to 2000, and have identified a number of unauthorised changes in grades belonging to a small number of current students and about 60 former undergraduates.

Some grades are said to have been changed from an “F” to an “A”.

25-year-old electrical engineering student Mark Loiseau tweeted that three FBI agents arrived to question him in his off-campus apartment, brandishining hundreds of pages of his Verizon cellphone records.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, Loiseau has denied any involvement in the hack.

The security breach is believed to have taken place between June 2010 and July of this…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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