High School Student Faces 38 Years In Prison For Hacking Grades

 

Las Flores (CA) - 18-year-old Omar Khan should be graduating from high school this week, but instead he faces more than 38 years in prison for hacking into school computers. School officials at the Tesoro High School in Las Flores California allege that Khan changed grades and his Advanced Placement test scores. Khan is also alleged to have installed a remote access program onto school servers. In all, Khan is charged with 69 felonies.

Khan apparently broke into school computers multiple times from January through May using a stolen login. He changed his C, D and F grades into As. He also altered the grades of 12 other students. School officials allege that Khan also emailed copies of tests and answer keys to his friends. Khan was caught after he requested an official school transcript for a university he was applying for.

While you may think 38 years in prison is a bit much for hacking into computers, Khan also reportedly did other crimes. After he was caught cheating on an English exam in April, he is alleged to have broke into an assistant principal’s office in order to steal back the test.

Khan currently sits in jail and will be arraigned later this week. Perhaps his parents are teaching him a harsh lesson by not putting up the $50000 bail money. Khan’s friend Tanvir Singh has also been charged in the break-ins, but he faces a relatively minor three years in prison.

Here is the list of charges against Khan

34 felony counts of altering public record
11 felony counts of stealing and secreting public records
7 felony counts of illegal computer access and fraud
6 felony counts of burglary
4 felony counts of identity theft
3 felony counts of altering book of records
2 felony counts of receiving stolen property
1 felony count of conspiracy
1 felony count of attempting altering of a public record

Humphrey Cheung is a consulting systems engineer for Cisco Meraki who has also worked as a freelance videographer and reporter. He was previously a senior editor for Tom's Hardware and his work has also been featured on Tom's Guide, CNN, The New York Times, NBC, FOX, plus many other publications.