Students hack files, including grades, attendance

Bloomfield Hills High School discovered that some students hacked into the district's Student Information System (SIS), and made unauthorized changes to grades, attendance and lunch balances for a small number of high school students, landing them in hot water.

“Though we encourage our students to take responsible action, sometimes they make choices that do not reflect our guiding principles. Unfortunately, a couple of our students made some poor choices lately, deciding to hack into our student information system, which houses all of our student and family data, and manipulate their personal grades, attendance, and lunch balance information,” the district stated on their website.

The district is not saying how many students were involved in the cyber hack, just that “we have identified a small number of students” who made unauthorized changes to their MISTAR system. Bloomfield Hills Superintendent Rob Glass said the district has launched an investigation into the full scope of the wrongful conduct, “and we are looking into potential access to information contained within MISTAR outside of the known unauthorized changes.”

The district has enlisted the assistance of a forensic investigator, and have determined that a report that may have contained usernames and passwords for the Parent Portal may have been run. As a precaution, a letter was mailed to parents detailing how to change their Parent Portal credentials, as they are resetting all Parent Portal passwords. As further assistance, the district is providing a call center to aid parents and students on Friday, May 19, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and again on Saturday, May 20 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The number is 1-833-221-9226.

“Our highest priority is our students – their safety, their needs, and their overall education,” Glass said. “That said, we also have a responsibility to you, the parents and guardians of our students.”

The district said their investigation is ongoing.