The official website for Victoria’s VCE exams has been hacked with a message claiming leaked tests were sold to ‘hundreds’ of students.A message appeared on the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority’s website on Wednesday.It thanked the authority for its ‘dog***t security standards’ that allowed hackers to infiltrate the site.Despite the security breach, VCAA said no papers had been leaked and exams would continue as normal.The hacker, identified only as ‘DaggerElite’, had claimed copies of the tests were sold online and individually tracked. The message was removed but the website remained offline on Wednesday night. The VCAA website is used by students to see their VCE exam results. Those results will be available at 7am on December 10. The exams for senior high school students are scheduled between October 29 and November 18 this year. A hacker published a message (above) on the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority’s website on WednesdayThe hacker started the message with what appeared to be an in-joke and then thanked those who ‘bought’ test papers ahead of the exam. The hacker claimed to have have sold them directly to students.’Here to say a big thank you to a much cooler group of people – those who purchased an Official VCA 2026 Exam from me ahead of the Exam day this year,’ they wrote. ‘Thanks to the support of these awesome hundreds of students statewide, we will hopefully be able to prepare the exam pages to be sent out even earlier than we have been able to this year, so you can study the paper you will sit in 2027 well in advance!’The hacker then shared details of their apparent scheme. ‘A massive thank you also goes to VCAA and their dog***t security standards on their website, allowing me to map out this s***show site and learn all about its internals,’ they wrote.’Another thank you to their select External Printing Providers for their s*** security policies allowing me to log-in to their systems and download a copy of the 2026 Exam papers from their internal file servers, LMFAO!They lastly thanked a law firm for ‘f***ing up email security on their website’ which they said allowed them to send all those who purchased an exam this year an anonymous email under the firm’s name. The hacker claimed to have sold the test sheets to students ahead of exam days’The success of this campaign could not have been possible without all their help together.’ DaggerElite claimed to know everyone who bought the alleged cheat sheets and warned them against sharing them with others. ‘Before anyone seeing this decides to go ask people to share the papers for the next few exams, I would like to remind you that those holding a paper are very well aware that each sent copy is individualised with an identifiable signature embedded in it.’it’s in their best interests to keep their papers to themselves, lest it be found out who purchased a 2026 VCAA Exam paper.”This is DaggerElite, and it has been an absolute pleasure working with all of you this year.’Victorian high school students told the Daily Mail the message was even more shocking because it followed a similar incident in 2024 where exam materials were leaked, prompting a security review.Melbourne student, Raphael, 18, who has specialist maths, physics and geography exams this week, said: ‘I don’t understand how VCAA and its external providers can mess up this badly after the debacle in 2024. It’s pretty impressive.’Annabelle, 16, who has a philosophy exam on Friday said about the hacker: ‘What an ego, they think they’re going to have a movie made about them.’ Following the 2024 incident, in which answers were accidentally leaked on cover sheets, then-Education Minister Ben Carroll ordered a ‘root and branch review’. Victorian Premier Ben Carroll said a thorough review of VCE exam security would be carried out following a previous breach in 2024 when he was education ministerThe owner of mentioned law firm, which deals with immigration matters, said it was not involved in Wednesday’s hack.’We do not have anything to do with this and we don’t know why our name was used,’ he told The Daily Mail.’We don’t even deal in a sector related to VCAA or school students.’VCAA CEO Andrew Smith said there appeared to be no leak of test papers.’The VCAA homepage was the subject of vandalism earlier today,’ he said.’An initial investigation has shown no evidence that any sensitive data or exam papers have been accessed.’The VCE exams will continue as scheduled.Join the discussionShould students who bought leaked exam papers face harsher penalties or is the system to blame?
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