When students first receive their Sequoia Union High School District (SUHSD) Canvas login, it is set to a default password. This has led to students figuring out other students’ passwords and hacking into their Canvas accounts. 

Students’ accounts require a username, which is their student Identification (ID) number, and a password, which by default is their first and last initials and birthday. This makes it easy for other students to log into other students’ accounts. 

“They logged into my email and they sent emails to the administrative [vice principle],” senior Julian Hull said. “I don’t really know [what they said in the emails, because they] deleted them, but they forgot to delete them from the recently deleted.”

Hull said he decided that the best thing to do from there was to change the password to his account to avoid this from happening to him again. Hull said that he recommends students change their passwords as well so they don’t get hacked like he did. 

“I definitely don’t think that’s safe, because I’ve definitely seen people log into other student accounts,” freshman English teacher Elias Mooring said. “Since I get freshman, I think I could include that as part of the onboarding at the start of the year. Like ‘hey freshmen, your password is automatically set as this but you can change it by doing this and this.’”

Instructional vice principal Cara Klackle is the administrator in charge of the school’s technology. 

“I don’t think it’s safe,” Klackle said “I know for sure that we’ve had hackers take advantage of that protocol and how we assign the passwords.”

Klackle said that she has asked about changing passwords before. Although she isn’t sure that we actually can, she thinks it would be one solution. Klackle said she has some advice for students.

“I think every student, when they first start school or start summer, should change their password to something else,” Klackle said.