By Kathryn Cross
News Editor
Mira Costa Vice Principal Jon Shaw penalized over five Costa students throughout the week of Oct. 26 after they either confessed or fellow students provided evidence against them to prove that they logged onto other students’ Naviance accounts.
The Costa College and Career Center uses Naviance as a college and career readiness software to help students organize college-related information. The CCC set each Costa student’s Naviance username to his or her first and last name and the passwords are the students’ birthdays.
Shaw said that the hackings occurred because the passwords are too generic, so other students were easily able to figure out the students’ birthdays and full name through social media accounts, such as Facebook.
“The password that we set is a temporary password that we assign to all students to make registering for Naviance less confusing,” CCC counselor Shalyn Tharayil said. “However, students have the ability to change their password once they log in, and we always encourage students to do that.”
Shaw said that he first became aware of students logging onto other students’ Naviance accounts when a parent reported it. Later, several students came forward to report that other students were logging onto Naviance accounts that were not their own.
To ensure that the hackings would not happen again, the CCC then sent out an e-mail to parents and students on Oct. 26 that instructed students to change their passwords.
To inform Costa parents about the hackings as well, Shaw sent another e-mail on Oct. 27 in addition to the CCC’s email to all Costa parents.
“It has come to our attention that a Mira Costa student may have logged on to your student’s Naviance account without permission,” Shaw said in his e-mail. “We do not have any evidence that information on any account was modified; however, please notify me if your student believes that any information was altered.”
Shaw then called in over five students into his office. According to Shaw, a number of students showed him text messages that they received where fellow students confessed to logging onto other students’ Naviance accounts.
In addition to confessions, some students reported other students who were involved.
Shaw said that he decided how to discipline each student based on the evidence provided against them, the Costa discipline matrix and technology use contract. Shaw did not comment on the disciplinary measures due to confidentiality.
“We just want to put an end to [the hackings],” Shaw said. “We want to make sure that it’s not happening to other students.”
Shaw stated that he believes that some students did this to look at the schools that fellow students were applying to, which is provided on Naviance. He additionally believes that students wanted to look at the scores that other students received on various standardized tests, which is also shown on Naviance.
“We took appropriate disciplinary action because what they did is actually attacking,” Shaw said. “It’s important that students are reprimanded. You can’t log onto someone else’s account without their permission.”
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