A 16-year-old South Miami Senior High School student has been arrested in connection with the cyberattacks that have impacted Florida’s largest school district during the first week of its virtual start to the school year, according to the Miami Herald.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools made the announcement via email about 9:30 a.m. Thursday, the Herald reported. The email included the arrest affidavit, which shows an arrest was made at 2:43 a.m. Thursday, according to the South Florida newspaper.
According to the affidavit, the student admitted to using a tool, the name of which was redacted in the report, to attack the school district’s network, the Herald reported.
According to the report, the student admitted launching eight attacks beginning Wednesday morning at a location between Zora Neale Hurston Elementary and W.R. Thomas Middle, according to the Herald.
Numerous internet protocol, or IP, addresses were associated with the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, the Herald reported, citing the affidavit. The student’s IP address was associated with the attacks and was traced to the student’s Flagami residence, according to the newspaper.
The student faces one felony count of using a computer to defraud and one misdemeanor account of interfering with an educational institution, the Herald reported.
A hearing was scheduled Oct. 8, Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts spokeswoman Eunice Sigler told the newspaper.
The Miami Herald is withholding the teen’s name. The Herald called his mother and visited their residence. A woman’s voice said through a security system that they don’t want to talk.
The cyberattacks, which started earlier in the week, continued Wednesday morning, according to reporter Colleen Wright and other media outlets.
There were 12 attacks since 8:19 a.m. Wednesday, according to the CBS affiliate in Miami.
At least four were “staved off,” but a fifth “led to same circumstances from yesterday,” Wright reported.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said during a news conference Tuesday the district suffered a distributed denial of service attack Monday morning as a software glitch blocked access to the district’s servers, the Miami Herald reported. The glitch and DDoS attack rendered multiple online school district features useless and teaching nearly impossible.
Carvalho said Tuesday’s attacks came from outside the U.S., and some were from local entities, Wright reported.
The FBI and Secret Service have been called in and subpoenaed the school district’s internet provider, Carvalho said. He added the glitch has been completely resolved and optimized.
Whoever conducted the cyberattack did not hack in or penetrate district servers, officials said. It wasn’t known who initiated the attack, but Carvalho said he wants them prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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