U. student accused of hacking for grade

Federal agents arrested a 21-year-old student at the University of Utah on charges he hacked into a computer system to change his grades.

FBI agents arrested You Li at a dormitory on campus Friday morning. Li is a Chinese national studying computer science.

In a federal grand jury indictment unsealed on Friday, Li is accused of using a software program to break into the university's math department computer system in December of 2004. The indictment alleges that Li used a professor's user name and password to read e-mails, get bank account numbers and other personal information belonging to the professor.

"He set up a hacking system where he could follow anything the professor did," said FBI Special Agent in Charge Tim Fuhrman. "It's no different than just going out and reading his mail at his house."

The U.S. Attorney's Office said Friday that Li also tried to hack into one of the professor's files on the math department computer systems to change a grade.

"He tried to change at least one grade from failing to passing," said U.S. Attorney's spokeswoman Melodie Ry- dalch.

University officials were reviewing the matter on Friday, said U. spokeswoman Coralie Alder.

"It's in the FBI's hands," she said. "We are certainly cooperating fully with them."

Li appeared before a federal magistrate on computer fraud charges and was released from FBI custody on Friday.

This is the second computer hacking case the FBI has dealt with this week, Fuhrman said. On Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney's Office indicted a man accused of launching a denial of service attack on an Internet service provider in Vernal. A grand jury indictment charged Ryan Fisher, 23, with intentionally damaging a protected computer.

"This guy was a former employee and had a dispute with them," Fuhrman said. "He left but retained passwords. Several weeks later he went back and hacked into that system and shut down Internet service in Vernal for about three weeks."

Federal prosecutors said Fisher worked for SBT Internet and left to go work for a competing company. Fuhrman suggested it may be a case of industrial sabotage — a way to drive customers to the other company.

FBI agents say computer hacking is a growing criminal problem. The hackers are younger and smarter than many other run-of-the-mill criminals.

"This is a big growth industry for the FBI. It's like anything else, you've got something new out there, and people who have ill motives are going to take advantage of it," he said. "We obviously have ongoing training programs for the younger agents who are more computer savvy than the older guys like me."

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