Florida teen charged with felony hacking for using password his teacher showed him

A 14-year-old middle school student in Holiday, Florida, was arrested this week and charged with “an offense against a computer system and unauthorized access,” which is a felony, the Tampa Bay Times reported this week.

The student reportedly used an administrator password to log into a teacher’s computer and change the background image to a photo of two men kissing.

He was initially suspended for three days for the prank, but Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco suggested that the criminal charges relate to the level of access he had obtained by logging onto the network as an administrator, according to the report. For example, he could have seen the questions for the state’s standardized tests, although Green said he didn’t actually tamper with anything other than the teacher’s PC background image, the report says.

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