Carlsbad

Hacker Displays Inappropriate Images to San Diego County 7th-Grade Class

Judith Santos says that since her kids started online learning, cybersecurity has always been something in the back of her head

NBC Universal, Inc.

Online learning comes with a lot of challenges and parents in Carlsbad are facing yet another one - cybersecurity. 

“The principal sent every parent an email that day saying that there was an issue,” said Judith Santos, Calavera Hills Middle School parent. “Someone got into the call."

Santos and her kids are just two weeks into the virtual school year and already this week she came face to face with a harsh reality.

“A man's voice saying bad words and then he showed a video, but I really don’t know what was in the video,” described Santos.

It didn't happen in her daughter's class, but it did happen to a 7th-grade class at her school at Calavera Hills Middle School on Tuesday. 

According to a statement from the school, the class taking place on Google Meet was compromised twice by an unauthorized user. In each case, which they say may have been a student, the user was let into the meeting by the teacher. The person didn't show their face, but did make inappropriate statements and displayed videos of inappropriate content.

“I always knew this could happen with classes online, but now that this happened, I got scared,” Santos said.

She says the school has been very supportive throughout the entire situation.

Santos showed NBC 7 the letter issued by the principal which read in part:

“This is clearly unacceptable and runs counter to our priority of student safety for CHMS students. We are working closely with the Carlsbad Police Department to investigate and respond to these incidents."

“In any technology that you are using there will be people trying to get to the kids and I am concerned, but I always talk to my kids and I let them know that if someone tries to talk to them that they have to let me know," said Santos.

NBC 7 reached out to Carlsbad Police for an update on the investigation, but have not heard back.

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