#OMIVOX EDOUARD SOFTWARE#
#OMIVOX EDOUARD PROFESSIONAL#

I found a serious problem, and tried to help fix it. Students could have been stalked, had their identities stolen, their lockers opened and who knows what else. In the wrong hands, this breach could have caused a disaster. I really want this degree, and now I won’t be able to get it. I can’t get into any other college because of these grades, and my permanent record shows that I was expelled for unprofessional conduct. 'I was acing all of my classes, but now I have zeros across the board.

#OMIVOX EDOUARD PROFESSIONAL#

The college’s professors voted, 14 to one, to expel Al-Khabaz for what they called a “serious professional conduct issue.”Īl-Khabaz deems his academic career “completely ruined.”

The college deemed it far more serious than just an honest mistake. should have known better than to use it without permission, but it is very clear to me that there was no malicious intent.

#OMIVOX EDOUARD SOFTWARE#

'This type of software should never be used without prior permission of the system administrator, because it can cause a system to crash. We acted immediately to fix the problem, and were able to do so before anyone could use it to access private information.'īut while the initial flaw report was welcome, Taza said, subsequently using the vulnerability scanner was a no-no: These two students discovered a very clever security flaw, which could be exploited. 'All software companies, even Google or Microsoft, have bugs in their software. Taza, while acknowledging that he mentioned police and legal consequences, denied making threats: He told me that I could go to jail for six to twelve months for what I had just done and if I didn't agree to meet with him and sign a non-disclosure agreement he was going to call the RCMP and have me arrested. I apologized, repeatedly, and explained that I was one of the people who discovered the vulnerability earlier that week and was just testing to make sure it was fixed. 'He said that this was the second time they had seen me in their logs, and what I was doing was a cyber attack.

Within minutes, he told the National Post, Skytech President Edouard Taza rang him up and accused him of launching a cyber attack: He used a web vulnerability scanner called Acunetix. Two days later, Al-Khabaz decided to check whether the software had in fact been fixed. In fact, Dawson College initially gave the pair a pat on the back for their initial code-poking.ĭawson College Director of Information Services and Technology François Paradis met with the two on October 24th, congratulating them for their work and promising that he and Skytech would fix the problem immediately. I chose not to because I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.'

I could have easily hidden my identity behind a proxy. I felt I had a moral duty to bring it to the attention of the college and help to fix it, which I did. 'I saw a flaw which left the personal information of thousands of students, including myself, vulnerable. Omnivox Portal, made by Skytech Communications, is advertised as a hub for all internal communications at educational institutions.Īl-Khabaz, a member of the school’s software development club, told the National Post that a security hole in the portal software allowed “anyone with a basic knowledge of computers” to gain access to all information a college has on a student, including social insurance number, home address, phone number, and class schedule.Īl-Khabaz said he felt morally obligated to report the problem, not knowing that his actions would be negatively construed: A computer science student has been expelled from Montreal’s Dawson College for poking at what he calls “sloppy coding” in the college’s software – sloppiness that compromised the security of more than 250,000 students’ personal data.Īccording to the National Post, the student, 20-year-old Ahmed Al-Khabaz, had been working on a mobile app that would have allowed students easier access to their college accounts.Īl-Khabaz and a colleague – Ovidiu Mija – discovered the flaw in the college’s Omnivox Portal software.

Omivox edouard