Former Shelton High School Student Launched Massive Hack of School District Computers: Police

SHELTON, CT — A former Shelton High school student has been arrested in connection with massive cyber attacks that crippled the entire school district's computer system, disabling internet access on multiple occasions in 2015 and 2016, according to police.

The former student, a juvenile who's name was not disclosed, was arrested Thursday and charged with third-degree Computer Crimes. He was held in detention and scheduled to appear in juvenile court on Friday, Dec. 30.

"An investigation launched by the Shelton Police revealed the juvenile was using a cell phone application to launch Distributed Denial of Service attacks, or DDOS attacks, on a daily basis against the schools internet service," wrote Shelton Police Detective Richard Bango in a statement. "DDOS attacks send information rapidly to a server, using its IP address, overwhelming the server. The end result is loss of connection to the internet."

The cyber attacks occurred during the months of November and December in 2015, and March and April of 2016, according to police.

"The schools internet has since been fully restored and defense software has been installed to deter future attacks," Bango added.

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