An unnamed teenage boy from Florida is currently facing felony charges after conducting a cyberattack that crashed the networks of 145 schools last spring. The teen was a student at one of the affected schools. The cyberattack was a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that caused all of the schools in the Pinellas County School District in Florida to lose internet access from March 22 to 23 of 2020.
According to the police department, the teen had watched a video online highlighting the vulnerability of school networks, taking it upon himself to disrupt the district’s digital peace and see how secure the networks were himself. The teenager allegedly regretted his actions immediately after realizing the full scope and impact of his actions, stating that he wished he could undo the damage. The cyberattack was considered critical because it coincided with statewide testing.
