Secaucus 9th Graders Hack Into, Shut Down Internet At High School

SECAUCUS, NJ — Yet another incident of Hudson County high school students hacking into their school's Internet — and this time it's in Secaucus!

Two 14-year-old boys in the ninth grade at Secaucus High School were arrested last Thursday, March 28 and charged with computer criminal activity and conspiracy to commit computer criminal activity, both third-degree crimes.

The teens hacked into the school's WiFi, essentially shutting down the Internet at Secaucus High School and making it impossible for teachers to give web-based tests, or teach Internet-based curriculum, said Capt. Dennis Miller of the Secaucus police department.

This happened on and off for several different days in March, a student at the high school told Patch. Both Secaucus middle school and the high school, which share a building, were paralyzed for a few days because of the hijacked Internet.

Teachers were unable to give tests on those days, or basically teach any lessons that relied on the use of the Internet. According to Miller, the students used a private company to hack into and disable the school's Wifi network.

It remains unclear how the two students were apprehended.

"Our WiFi connection was compromised over the past week," said Secaucus schools superintendent Jennifer Montesano in an email to Patch. "We conducted an investigation and at the present time, we have determined that two students may have been involved in the disruption of our system. The system has been restored and is now fully operational."

The ninth graders' arrest was first reported in this week's Secaucus police blotter.

The Jersey Journal interviewed kids leaving Secaucus High School on Monday.

The students said they think the two boys used a specific app to send so much traffic to the routers that the system would crash.

“One day we were supposed to be doing work on our Chromebooks, but we had no activity whatsoever to do in class because the WiFi shutdown,” said Diego, a 10th grader. “It interrupted the whole class, unfortunately.”

“I think it was dumb for them to do it,” the student continued. “If you don’t want to be in a test, you’re going to have to deal with it because he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t going to take that test. It was a whole class."

The students also told the Jersey Journal they think the boys were taking requests from other kids to shut down the WiFi on certain days.

It seems to be a trend these days of students trying to outsmart their school's technology systems — but getting caught. Earlier this winter, students at Dickinson High School in Jersey City hacked into their school's computer system and changed their grades. And in March, high school students in the Elizabeth school district also hacked into the system and changed their grades, and were also caught. Students at Dickinson in Jersey City used keylogging software, which tracks which keys are hit on a keyboard. It's most often used to steal passwords.