Panther Creek High student arrested for hacking into school database and changing grades
Cary authorities on Wednesday arrested a 17-year-old from Morrisville, connected to an October 2015 hacking incident at Panther Creek High School in Cary.
Saivamsi Hanumanthu, a resident of Pilot Hill Drive in Morrisville, was charged with breaking and entering into government computers. If convicted on all charges, the student could serve up to four years in prison.
According to a search warrant in the case, Wake County school officials discovered that an email sent from one Panther Creek High teacher to another a few days before the hack contained malware. The program was then able to monitor the administrator's keyboard and record usernames and passwords as they were typed. The hacker could then retrieve the information.
Police said the investigation began focusing on Hanumanthu on October 22 after a teacher saw him in a dark classroom working on a laptop.
According to the affidavit, two weeks before that, the PowerSchool system, a state database that tracks student attendance and grades at the school, was hacked on three separate occasions, and the grades and performance of six students were altered. A total of 90 grades were changed in the system, said a senior who saw Hanumanthu's class rank improve from 67th to 70th.
Most of the changes were made from an IP address on the school's computer system, but police found that another hack was made from a computer at the Regional Library, on Louis Stephens Road, where Hanumanthu often volunteered, according to the warrant.
The software on all Panther Creek computers was removed and reinstalled.
School officials confirmed Wednesday that Hanumanthu remains enrolled at Panther Creek. Spokeswoman Lisa Luten said federal student privacy laws prohibit her from disclosing whether Hanumanthu was disciplined .
