Page 137 - Cyber Safety C-8

21 st
Century #Technology Literacy
Skills

Read the following case study and answer the questions that follow:
Skyfield School was known for its modern digital ecosystem—smart attendance scanners, AI-based
learning tools, online portals, secure cloud storage, and IoT-enabled classrooms. Students loved the
convenience, teachers appreciated the speed, and everything worked smoothly… until two separate
student mistakes collided into the biggest cyber disruption the school had ever seen.

Dev, a bright Class 8 student, received an email one evening announcing:
“Congratulations! You are selected for the National Science Scholarship—Verify details here.”
The email looked official, carried the school logo, and even mentioned his science project title. Without
verifying the sender, Dev clicked the link. The URL was odd, but he ignored it. The page asked him to log
in, so he happily typed the password he used everywhere: Dev@123.
Within minutes, a hacker gained access to his school portal account.
Using Dev’s credentials, the attacker sent teachers a “student marks update” file. A few teachers
opened it — unknowingly installing ransomware that locked their files with a message:
“Pay `200,000 to recover your documents.”
Meanwhile, IoT devices in the school started malfunctioning. The attendance system failed, AC units
fluctuated, and classroom lights blinked on their own. The hacker had jumped from a teacher’s infected
laptop into the school’s unsecured IoT system, which still used default passwords.
At the same time, Ishita, a very organised student in the same class, was preparing her group notes.
She downloaded a new “Study Buddy AI” app that promised instant summaries using Artificial
Intelligence. It looked professional, so she installed it without checking the developer. The app
immediately asked for:
Microphone access Contacts access

File access Cloud sync access
Busy studying, Ishita clicked Allow without thinking. That single click installed spyware.
By morning:

Her phone battery drained unusually fast
Her cloud account showed logins from another city

Her Instagram suggested unknown contacts
Her microphone logs showed activity at midnight
The spyware had copied her passwords, accessed her files, and collected her personal data.

Then came the financial scam. Her best friend Tara received a message from Ishita’s number:
“I’m stuck outside home. Please send `2,000 urgently to get the new set of keys made.”
Tara was confused as Ishita was sitting right next to her!

Digital Tale 135