Northshore School District students receive emails with inappropriate messages



BOTHELL, Wash. -- The Northshore School District is updating parents that student's emails were not hacked, instead were spammed after first warning parents that an outsider gained access to student emails. Now students are locked out of their emails with just weeks left in the school year, as the district investigates this serious security breach.

Some have described the emails as disturbing, with links to pornography and laced with profanity describing drugs, sex and violence.

Parents like Tami Dillon got a call Sunday from the Northshore School District about an outsider gaining access to student emails and sending inappropriate messages.

“I was really shocked, and I didn’t really know what to think,” said Dillon. She was even more shocked knowing her 15-year old daughter Dani, who attends Bothell High School, had received and opened the messages.

“What happened was that someone figured out that they could message literally everyone in the district and signed various people up for accounts on porn sites, spammed pornography, spammed group chats and added people to strange conversations,” said Dani Dillon.

In a warning to parents on Sunday, the district announced they are working to figure out how this happened and who’s responsible, but in the meantime they’ve blocked student access to their gmail accounts.

“It’s pretty immature; obviously there are kids of lower ages that really should not be seeing this,” said Bothell High School Sophomore Jack Gagnon. “It goes way too far.”

Parents like Tami Dillon are still concerned, wondering if this security breach could have more serious consequences.

“I just worry if they can do that, can they get into kids’ transcripts, what other damage can they do,” said Tami Dillon.

The district sent another message to parents, Monday, updating that student information was not compromised. They are are still working to find how exactly the accounts were spammed. The district also said that none of the emails went to students in the elementary schools. As of Monday night, student access to email was still shut off.

As digital detectives work to find the hackers, the Northshore School District announced this could lead to changes as to how students can access and use technology.