SMU law student jailed 2 months for accessing professors' accounts

Georgy Kotsaga plugged a USB hardware keylogger into the common desktop in the classrooms of two professors to capture their login details, in an attempt to cheat in an exam. 

File photo of students sitting for an exam. (Photo: AFP/Jung Yeon-Je)

• By Vanessa Paige Chelvan-16 Feb 2016

SINGAPORE: A Russian student enrolled in Singapore Management University’s Juris Doctor course has been jailed for two months for accessing the eLearn accounts of two professors and deleting 19 examination scripts.

Georgy Kotsaga, 32, had earlier pleaded guilty to two charges under the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act. Another two charges were taken into consideration in sentencing him.

The court heard Kotsaga had bought a USB hardware keylogger, which he plugged into the common desktop in the classrooms of two professors. The keylogger captured the professors’ login details, which Kotsaga later used to gain access to their accounts.

During an exam on Nov 24 last year, Kotsaga went to the toilet and used his professor’s login details to gain access to the scripts of the other 18 students also sitting for the online exam.

Kotsaga was having difficulties answering the exam questions and viewed the scripts of his classmates for about 20 minutes in the hopes of finding “useful information”.

After the exam, he logged into his professor’s account again to view the script of the top student in the module. Realising that he would not do very well in the exam and worried about his GPA, Kotsaga used his professor’s account to delete all the exam scripts, under the impression that he would get a second chance to attempt the exam.

But his plan was foiled by SMU’s IT system that makes real-time backups, and all the scripts were later recovered.

KOTSAGA’S ACTIONS ‘SPITS IN THE FACE OF EDUCATION SYSTEM’: DPP

In urging the court to impose a sentence of between two to three months’ jail, Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Khoo cited four aggravating factors.

Kotsaga’s actions were “carefully planned and premeditated”, DPP Khoo said, pointing to Kotsaga’s purchase of the keylogger to commit the offences. This shows “a higher level of sophistication” as compared to other offenders who “merely stumble upon a password written down somewhere or guess the password to an account”, the DPP said.

If Kotsaga had succeeded in deleting the scripts, the outcome “would have been catastrophic”, DPP Khoo said. Kotsaga had cheated by accessing his fellow classmates’ scripts in the middle of the exam and later deleted all the scripts after realising he would not do well. This “spits in the face of the education system”, the DPP told the court.

The deputy also added that great harm could have been caused to the professor, who was “unnecessarily dragged into investigations and questioned about the offences” because Kotsaga had “used him to mask his criminal actions”.

Cybercrimes are difficult to detect, the DPP noted, and more so when an offender takes steps to mask his offence. Kotsaga had changed the IP address of his iPhone before accessing the professors’ accounts, although he was eventually tracked down.

DPP Khoo also highlighted Kotsaga’s motive for committing the offences, which he did “purely to further his own self-interest”, having “no qualms destroying the interests of other innocent people”, the DPP said, calling for the court to impose a sentence that would deter other like-minded offenders given the ease of access to keyloggers, which are extremely simple to use and difficult to detect.

For the unauthorised access of his professors’ accounts, Kotsaga could have faced up to two years’ jail and/or fined up to S$5,000. As for the unauthorised deletion of exam scripts from a computer, Kotsaga could have been jailed up to three years and/or fined up to S$10,000.

- CNA