DD facing suspension. Please Help.

I agree there are so many questions that are created by this post. I was looking for something else on mumsnet but I came across this and I am not surprised by the strength of feeling over this mishandled, clumsy intimidating situation created by the school.

Firstly 3 members of staff questionning your DD was unnecessary and intimidating.

I would like to know - How would they know and what proof did they have that this was not the type of virus that you get from clicking on something? some of the worst trojans and virus's are obtained by doing just that or just by logging on to something. The staff made accusations and assumptions that she knew what she was doing. I agree that if she went against school policy by accessing social networking sites then it is punishable but their system should have preventions in place from doing just that.

As for the seriousness of the situation, okay, if she went against policy she should have a telling off (how much education are they giving these kids about protecting themselves against all things bad on the Internet?) but I find it laughable that the security company have the audacity to want to see action against the person, when it is they have should have action brought against them for leaving the system vulnerable to attack. This company has an obligation to protect the system and its users and should have processes in place to ensure that all AV is up to date and they should question their own system if a trojan/virus gets through. I have worked in IT for a long time and sometimes the signatures of a virus are not always recognised straightaway and it could be hours or a few days for the protection to be put in place. This is why you protect your users and networks agains access to some sites which have shown to be less than secure like Tumblr!

We have had isolated cases in business where a trojan has got through and it was not the users' fault. Our AV was dynamically updated but it just means that the IT departments have to constantly review its policies and procedures to protect the business and its users.

In my opinion the school and in particular the headteacher is taking an uneducated and gut reaction to something that they know little about and I would be apoplectic if that had happened to my daughter when she was at school.

Final thought, did your DD log on to her Tumblr account, it is possible that her account has been hacked, just by logging on to it could have opened a port to let a trojan be downloaded, in which case check your computers at home and as a safety precaution make sure all your DDs passwords are changed immediately (and tell her not to tell anyone what they are, she needs to understand how important it is to protect her identity). Either way, it is not her fault, poor girl, after an exemplary school record you would think they would take this into account before dropping a ton of bricks on her.

Would be interested to know how things go?

alreadytaken
"Does your child have the computing expertise to deliberately upload a virus? I know that mine would not have the skill to do this and would be furious at any school taking the sort of action you describe."

It doesn't take a great deal of knowledge to put a USB stick in the mchine and click on the .exe file.

OP there are so many questions that are created by your post, leaving too many ifs and buts.

You need to talk to the HT about this and find out exactly what is going on.

Before anyone on here can talk about the "hacking"/"Virus" situation we would need to know what type of system the school runs.

Is the system virtual and run from a main server or do the machines have their own operating system?

I don't think this warrants an exclusion but she would be dealt with severely by most schools for accessing a social media site and sharing her password. I would put her into a senior staff after school detention for one hour and remove her computer access within school for at least two weeks, perhaps longer.

I think you need to stay calm and look at the facts.

1. the school can talk to your daughter without another adult present
2. your daughter has admitted going on tumblr using schools access.
3. the time she went onto tumblr is the time that there was a virus attack attempted on the computer system.
4. has admitted giving her password to two other girls.

The question then becomes what does the school policy say about what pupils can access on the IT system of the school. The bottom line is if it says, no social networks should be accessed then, you daughter has transgressed and a 2 day fixed term exclusion would not be unrealistic, given what subsequently happened. The fact that the system did not stop her going to the site is irrelevant, she should have known the rules and not done it.

Giving her password out to two other girls is relevant but I disagree with mummytime as to its severity. I would bet most of the school population know at least one of their friend's passwords. Maybe however the school will see it differently from me.

By now you should also hopefully have had a letter from the head teacher which confirms the two day exclusion and you need to look at that and see exactly what it says that your daughter is being fixed term exclude for. I would suggest that as your daughter is in the 6th form the biggest danger is not what might get on to the UCOS form etc but actually that the school asks your daughter to leave the school all together. That might be worth remembering before you go into school, they have no legal duty to educate your child in the 6th form. I suspect the best option is to work with the school, accepting your daughter has done wrong for which she is completely sorry, but that you need to understand what the school is going to do to stop this happening again - they do have faults in their system and there is clearly a learning issue with the pupils, if not the staff.

The password thing is a serious breach of security. The virus thing is not, except it highlights breaches in the schools own security.

Actually the password thing shows that the school has been inadequate in its own ICT teaching, it is the kind of thing that can get employees dismissed, so students ought to realise how bad it is, and your DD should have changed her password if others knew it.

"He told her that the company who provide the computer security want to see action taken against who is responsible."

Since when have external companies with nothing to do with dealing with schools and students, had a say in who may or may not be suspended or "have serious action taken against them?"

As I didn't know what tumbler was I decided to take a look. My virus software informed me it was unsafe and detected a virus attack. I hadn't actually entered the site and said no when asked if I wanted to proceed. If it is that dangerous it shouldn't be accessible from school systems. Do you know if it is blocked?

Does your child have the computing expertise to deliberately upload a virus? I know that mine would not have the skill to do this and would be furious at any school taking the sort of action you describe. They should have telephoned when she was isolated and invited you to be present during the interview. They should also have ensured that she had lunch, even if it was brought to her. I don't know your legal rights but google suggests that had your daughter been arrested the police would have had to phone you before interview www.civilrightsmovement.co.uk/rights-if-your-child-arrested.html

On Monday I would telephone the school requesting an urgent appointment to discuss the way this was being handled. I would ask for copies of all the information they had which led them to believe that this was anything other than an external attack on the system.

Although a suspension may now go on her school reference you should ensure you see her school reference before it is submitted. It may not refer to the suspension but could be inadequate.

If this happened at about the time when she would have been leaving for lunch, is there a possibility that she hasn't logged off correctly and someone else has taken advantage of her log-on?

IT people don't always know what they are doing, even at our most respected institutions!! A Trojan found it's way into my computer when I was uploading something to an Oxford University intranet. It turned out the trojan, which caused your computer to mail anyone you had ever mailed from your computer with a dodgy link, had also resulted in Oxford sending careers offices in schools literally thousands of these dodgy emails! Yet their IT people were utterly useless, denying it was anything to do with their systems, in spite of the fact that I could quote my DDs' school's careers officer's annoyance at finding their email account clogged up with the dodgy mails from them!! They also advised me it was incredibly difficult to get rid of and I should basically get a new computer, I typed the identifier from my anti virus software into google and got rid of it in ten minutes!!!

There is absolutely no way I would be disciplining one of our students purely on the say so of our IT geeks!! It sounds as though the school haven't worked that out and have acted out of misplaced faith in their expertise and authority. You should certainly go in and ask for a full explanation, and whether this alleged act of vandalism is in their judgement in character for your daughter? If your DD is a good pupil surely some common sense should have prevailed rather than the advice of IT people who do not know your daughter and probably nurse paranoid stereotypes of all pupils being evil hackers out to sabotage all their hard work and precious systems!!

My DD's school block all social networking etc sites , my DDs couldn't get on to Tumbler from a school computer anyway, and it is naive of the school to expect that if they leave that possibility open that it's pupils will be able to resist.

Hamishbear: look at the timeline - she was on the computer on Wednesday but the disciplinary process started on Friday. As the network is one shared by several schools there probably is an IT department who runs it for all of them and there has been enough time to investigate and the school is probably working from an incident report. You are right though, in that OP should ask what exactly what was reported - for as other posters have pointed out it does look as though the attack was well contained and the 'worst case' outcome not at all likely to have come to pass.

Does the school have a published IT usage policy? If so, have a look before any meetings. This thread prompted me to have a look at ours, which I found on line, is 10 pages long and contains reference to sanctions. Sharing passwords is a punishable breach in itself, and I think the school was right to ask about this to exclude the possibility. Knowingly infecting with a virus is a major breach, for which punishment is not described beyond 'will be referred to Head'. Actions against the permitted usage policy which leave the system vulnerable to attack are also punishable breaches. Is the school acting in line with its own policy?

Is this a private school?
They are massively over reacting, and they need to get better computer security. It is their IT department's responsibility to prevent this kind of thing. They should be preventing: viruses being able to attack the system, they should be detected and dealt with promptly; they should be blocking all pop ups or access to dodgey sites (and inspecting certificates to make sure sites are who they say they are).
It is not your daughter's fault!

My DS who has on more than one occasion tried to hack the system (or done something similar but against rules), has had no more than his access suspended and been told off. His school and I both treat it relatively mildly as we know he isn't being malicious (he's tried to see if he can rather than wanting to create damage), however on the other hand we have warned him about consequences. The IT department work well because he has always been caught and punished (the IT ban is a real pain).

In your DD's case it looks as if they tried to shift the blame to a pupil, because they aren't doing a good enough job.

I think you need to go and see the head teacher and get a full explaination as to what has happend and why exactly the school think its all down to your daughter.

I cannot believe a school suspends a pupil for something they deem so serious as computer hacking and dont get the parents in to see the head to discuss first. So you just got a call? What was explained to you or her Dad in that call? Did they not offer you a fuller explaination? Were you not given the option to go in or call back and discuss?

The way this has been handled is appalling.

I sincerely hope you can get to the bottom of this. I would be at the school 8am Monday morning demanding to see the head, head of IT and wanting a full explanation.

Just noticed this: She was questioned by the 3 staff members about what she was doing on the computer and she admitted to using Tumblr. They informed her that this wasnt the kind of virus that you get from clicking on something and you would know what you were doing.

If she was on the computer at the time this happened - and they might be able to prove that - isn't it possible she inadvertently activated some trojan horse or something? How would 3 staff members know so quickly this 'wasn't the kind of virus that you get from clicking on something' and you would know what you were doing? Are they IT experts? Has she told them exactly what she accessed at the time?

Are you sure you have the full story from your daughter - could she have been looking at other sites other than tumblr? Spending time on the internet when she should have been working etc? Not saying she is guilty or had malicious intent but just wondering. They may have evidence she's been looking at tumblr and other sites that have compromised the computer in some way? Does seem a very extreme reaction by the school. I would be beating a path to the headmaster's office for a full explanation.

But why did he go for her in that aggressive fashion? He should have questioned her in a way remembering that she is innocent until proved guilty. That statement about going to prison - disgusting. I would be so angry with the school.

Going on the information I have read (and please point out if I misunderstood)

the virus was tracked to a machine she logged onto - was it tracked to the time she was logged on. If the virus was quarantined rather than spread (as appears) there will be a log in the AV software of what what blocked and at what time.

secondly - the virus didn't actually do anything, it was completely contained - which of course is what the anti virus software is designed to do..

It sounds like they don't actually have a problem at all! Coming from someone who works in IT, Viruses happen, people click things by accident and viruses get downloaded / infected (not saying that was your DD) . Thats the whole point of why AV software exists