A student who was expelled from his Montreal college after discovering a security flaw in his school’s student information system has now been offered a scholarship and part-time job by the software company behind the system.
Hamed Al-Khabaz, the 20-year-old computer science student behind the discovery, informed Dawson College of the vulnerability. He then signed a protocol which allowed him to examine his findings using a test server under faculty supervision.
If exploited, the security flaw could have exposed the personal information of 250,000 students from across Quebec, Al-Khabaz estimated.
After the software company Skytech Communications solved the problem, Al-Khabaz said he used the test server provided to him by the school to confirm the results for himself.
“I was just messing around a bit on the test server they gave me. I thought it was okay, because test servers are meant to mess around anyway,” Al-Khabaz said.
Skytech detected Al-Khabaz’s intrusion in their system and called the student to warn him that his actions were considered a cyber attack, and that he could face severe penalties.
When Al-Khabaz told Skytech he had reported the security flaw a few days before, they agreed to let the incident go.
“They told me they wouldn’t file a lawsuit or anything if I gave them the remaining flaws I found in the system, because I found out other stuff,” Al-Khabaz said.
“I just wanted them to get it fixed.”
Dawson communications co-ordinator Donna Varrica said Al-Khabaz broke their protocol in which he agreed to help fix the initial problem and nothing else.
Expulsion processes began after he attempted additional intrusions into Dawson administrative systems that had “nothing to do with student information,” despite several warnings to stop, she said.
Al-Khabaz appealed his expulsion, but the college has refused to reverse their decision, stating his actions breached the school’s code of professional conduct.
Varrica said it is disappointing that the case has been treated as an isolated incident at Dawson, both at the IT level and the academic level.
“Dawson’s stand on this issue is not unique, it’s in line with most other educational institutions,” she said.
For now, Al-Khabaz said he is still considering all of his options for the near future, including the nearly 30 job offers he has received from across Canada.
“Most of them are in Quebec, and I’ve gotten a few from overseas and in Ottawa, Toronto, and I got one in Vancouver,” he said.
“It’s not safe to assume that I’ll take Skytech’s job offer 100 per cent,” said Al-Khabaz, but with the scholarship from Skytech he will be able to finish his degree at another college in Montreal.
