15-Year-Old Hacker Diverts Ships in Mediterranean Sea for Fun

A 15-year-old hacker gained access to a number of online portals in Italy, allowing him to alter the routes of oil tankers and other ships in the Mediterranean Sea.

Most hackers today have financial goals as they try to compromise companies and other organizations, steal data, and lock out employees, in order to ask for ransom. But there was a time when hackers tried to break into secure locations just to see if they could. 

As it turns out, the same goes for the young adolescent from Cesena, Italy, who started his hacking journey because he wanted to change his grades. So, he started to look for ways to break into systems belonging to the Ministry of Education and Merit. According to a Corriere di Bologna report, he only wanted to change some grades from 5 to 6 (F to E). 

The hacker actually managed to change his grades, but he later changed his focus to other targets. It's unclear why he chose the target he did, but he also managed to break into systems that allowed him to alter ship routes in the Mediterranean Sea. 

While changing the grades wasn't enough to attract the authorities' attention, changing maritime routers is a different matter. Following an investigation, the 15-year-old was identified and referred to the Juvenile Court of Bologna. 

After the news of the young hacker's exploits became public, the Ministry of Education and Merit issued a statement, saying that their systems remain safe. 

"Checks carried out did not reveal any access or violations in the information systems of the Ministry of Education and Merit," the authorities said. "Therefore, the alleged and serious violations of the student's IT platforms did not involve the information systems managed at the ministerial level. Most likely involved unauthorized access to the electronic register, which is not a tool managed by the Ministry of Education and Merit.” 

The same can't be said for the critical infrastructure he somehow compromised, and there's no information yet on how he managed to penetrate the systems.