ATLANTA — A cyber-attack targeting an educational software program used nationwide could have exposed the personal info of nearly 250,000 students here in Georgia.
One of the people behind the attack was just 19 years old.
Now, law enforcement and cybersecurity experts are warning that he is part of a concerning number of young people boosting their cyber skills on gaming platforms.
Matthew Lane is now in a federal prison.
He sat down exclusively with ABC News before he left for his four-year sentence to talk about what drew him into the criminal world.
“It’s indescribable, the adrenaline you get when doing something like that. It’s way more than driving 120 mph on like a back road or a highway,” Lane said about hacking. “I was addicted to hacking. That gave me the most natural high ever.”
Lane said that, as a young teen, he struggled with mental health.
He started programming while playing Roblox and was quickly drawn into the cheating community.
“A friend that I knew put me on a bot, this game cheating – the Roblox cheating program. And then I started to get into that. And just kind of spiraled from there,” Lane said.
Soon he was researching vulnerabilities and explainers on web security
“You realize you’re good at this thing that can make you money, in a bad way. It’s easy – easy money, even though it’s dirty. As a young kid, you’re like, ‘I’m gonna do that,’” Lane said.
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One of the things Lane is now convicted of doing is participating in the hack of the educational software company Powerschool, potentially exposing the Social Security numbers, birthdays, medical information, and more of 60 million kids and 10 million teachers nationwide, including tens of thousands right here in Georgia.
“This was an open and shut case for us,” FBI supervisory special agent Doug Domin told Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray.
Domin said they were able to track IP addresses from Powerschool to a server in Ukraine owned by Lane.
“It was one of the worst I’ve seen here when you talk about financial impact, and you talk about the forever impact that these students and faculty will have for the rest of their life,” Domin said.
Lane is just one of a concerning number of young cyber criminals.
The FBI has also announced the arrest of John Daghita, 21, for allegedly stealing tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency from the U.S. government.
In 2022, the Department of Justice charged Joseph Garrison, 18, for the DraftKings breach that cost users over $600,000.
Fergus Hay is the CEO of the Hacking Games, a company dedicated to training the next generation of ethical hackers.
“What’s really scary, and what the data shows, is the vast majority of the people committing the cybercrimes are children,” Hay said.
Hays said hackers start the grooming process online, reaching out to high-performing gamers posing as kids.
“Parents need to plug in. Parents need to lock in. Parents need to understand the world that their kids are living in, understand the threat of that kid being groomed from their bedroom,” Hays said.
“I’m honestly thankful for the FBI. You know, even the DOJ. I’m thankful for them, because I would have never stopped,” Lane said.
Asked about assertions that hackers develop their skills by first learning how to cheat on platforms such as Roblox, and assertions that cyber criminals find new recruits on such platforms, a Roblox representative noted this:
- “Cybercrime is an industry-wide challenge. At Roblox, we established the HackerOne Bug Bounty program to encourage people to ethically report security issues. We’ve hired several young people directly from the HackerOne program who now work full-time at Roblox, securing our systems.
- “We also have cutting-edge anti-cheat systems that are designed to prevent exploits in Roblox experiences.
- “We work closely with law enforcement and other partners to report cyber-enabled crime through the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). We’re also a member of the Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC), which has been an integral partner for exchanging threat intel when certain security incidents occur.”
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