The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority’s website has been hacked during the state’s exam period, with the culprit launching a tirade of expletives and claiming without evidence to have accessed student papers.
On Wednesday evening, a message attributed to someone using the alias “DaggerElite” appeared on the VCAA’s homepage banner, claiming to have sold exam papers to “hundreds of students” across the state.
They further alleged VCAA had “dogshit security standards” that had allowed them to “map out this shitshow site and learn all about its internals” and download a copy of ۲۰۲۶ exam papers from its internal file servers.
A spokesperson for the VCAA strongly refuted the hacker’s claims, which they said were “fabricated” and there was “no evidence at all” that any VCE exams had been accessed or leaked.
“These are false claims designed for financial gain from the exploitation of anxious students,” they said.
“For obvious reasons, the VCAA does not reveal or comment on specific security process used to protect the integrity of VCE exams.”
The hacker also claimed they had sent the exams to the students via an email address belonging to the law firm Go Ahead Lawyers, whose email security system they said they had hacked.
A spokesperson for Go Ahead Lawyers said it was “not involved in the reported hacking incident involving the VCAA website” and its firm “did not access or distribute any exam papers”.
“Our review to date has found no evidence of unauthorised access to our email systems,” they said.
“We suspect a third party may have spoofed our email address to make messages appear to come from our firm. Go Ahead Lawyers did not send or authorise those messages.”
The incident has been reported to Victoria police.
On Thursday morning, the VCAA website said it was “undergoing maintenance”. “We apologise for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience,” it read.
The VCAA chief executive, Andrew Smith, told ABC Radio Melbourne that it was working to restore the website as a “matter of urgency”, adding the likelihood exam papers could be downloaded from secure printers was “very, very low”.
“Once we’ve completed our investigation, we will go back, look at the root cause of what might have happened, and any changes we need to increase the security around our corporate website will certainly be made,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Victorian government said year ۱۲ exams were “stressful enough without someone trying to vandalise the system”.
“The VCAA has advised no exams have been accessed or leaked and that claims made in relation to VCE exams being accessed are fabricated,” they said.
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“The VCAA immediately removed its website from public access and commenced an investigation into the claims, as is appropriate. The VCE exams will continue as normal.”
Students reacted with ire on social media.
“The fact that people are hacking a GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY just goes to show the ridiculous amounts of stress and pressure they put on us,” one wrote. “People out here getting psychological disorders over VCAA.”
“Yo who got the physics paper,” another joked.
The hack comes after a disruptive period for the VCAA. In ۲۰۲۴, the state government ordered a review into the exam period after the body unintentionally published ۵۶ of the ۱۱۶ test papers before they were sat due to a “publishing error”, including English.
The questions – either identical or very similar to those in the final exams – were contained in VCAA sample cover pages, which contained hidden text in seemingly blank sections.
The sample cover pages became de facto cheat sheets, and were available online for weeks before the were pulled.
Then chief-executive, Kylie White, resigned from the VCAA in the fallout from the “cheat sheet” bungle, and the board was sacked in ۲۰۲۵.
Multiple errors were also found in ۲۰۲۳ and ۲۰۲۲ maths exams, prompting VCAA to launch a comprehensive review of the vetting and proofing process for papers.
The VCE exam period commenced on ۵ October and will continue to run until ۱۸ November. There are ۲۴ exams remaining across the final days, including physics, geography and politics.
