Mom Hacks School’s Computer System to Change Kids’ Grades

ABC News

Ever since grades started being stored on computers, kids have fantasized about hacking into the system and changing them.

But when the marks of two youngsters in Pennsylvania’s Northwestern Lehigh School District mysteriously rose, it had nothing to do with their computer skills. Instead it was their mother who broke into the system and gave her children the better grades.

Catherine Venusto, had worked in the school district between 2008 and 2011, used the superintendent, of all people’s, password to breach the system. Venusto was discovered when a teacher wondered why the superintendent had accessed her online grade book.

According to authorities, Venusto looked at the email accounts of nine faculty members, accessed thousands of personnel and employee reports, and changed a failing “F” her daughter received in one class to a “M” for medical. Somewhat inexplicably, she also changed a 98 her son got in a class to a 99.

She now faces three counts of unlawful use of a computer and three counts of computer trespassing and altering data. We can only hope that one percent was worth it.