Investigators: Haddonfield hackers were changing grades

The Haddonfield Memorial High School students caught hacking into the school's computer system were changing grades, according to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

None of the students, who are juveniles and have not been identified, have been charged yet, as investigators comb through school computers to fully determine what the students did while inside the system.

"It doesn't seem to have gone beyond grade changing, but we're still investigating," said Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

The breach was discovered earlier in the week and was disclosed to parents Wednesday night at a regularly scheduled meeting to discuss end-of-year activities.

The students used a keystroke-logging program they installed on computers at the high school to capture the user names and passwords of anyone using one of the rigged computers, school officials said.

With that data, they gained access to the school's record system, not just the internal information system on which teachers posts grades, class schedules, attendance, even the status of homework assignments for students and their parents to view, as a school board member said Wednesday.

In an e-mail to students and parents on Wednesday, Principal Michael Wilson said the students had gained access to about 200 of the nearly 2,000 accounts that have access to the computer system at the high school.

"The tech department acted extremely quickly, and put in further security to block it from happening again," said Superintendent Alan Fegley. "The student system has been locked down severely, as has the teacher system."