Teenage Boy Charged With Massive Plainfield Schools Job Site Hack

Updated 6:15 p.m. Oct. 19:

Federal agents and Joliet detectives tracked down the boy behind a massive hack of the Plainfield school district's job application site, a police source said.

The 14-year-old Joliet West High School student was pulled out of classes Friday morning and taken to River Valley Juvenile Detention Center, the source said.

The boy was charged with computer tampering in connection with a breach of the Plainfield School District 202 online job application system last week.

More than 20,000 people who applied for jobs with the district received what district spokesman Tom Hernandez described as an “inappropriate and offensive message.”

One past job applicant said she received one of the emails. The message was titled “Plainfield School District 202 has had a security breach.”

The email, which addressed the applicant by name, contained a racial slur and boasted about hacking into the system.

A source with the Joliet Police Department said it really didn't take much talent for the teen to pull of his obscene stunt.

"There was some concern it was a more sophisticated hacking event," the source said, calling the boy "just a 14-year-old computer-savvy individual."

FBI agents assisted the Joliet police in cracking the case but he will be tried in Will County juvenile court.

The teen has no prior criminal record, the source said.

The company Apex Solutions owns the job application website used by District 202. An Apex Solutions vice president said last week that the hacker used a Plainfield 202 username and password to access the database of employment applications to "send an obscene email."

Hernandez said while the district is confident no sensitive information was compromised, job applicants can remove their information from the site if they choose.

"We have no evidence that any unauthorized individual has actually retrieved and is using personal information that applicants or employees may have submitted to the district’s job application system," Hernandez said in an email Friday night. "However, you may have your personal information removed from District 202’s job application system by sending an email to removejobinfo@psd202.org  with your name and the email address used when you applied for a job with District 202."