Cheating Companies Hack Websites of Columbia, MIT, UCLA, Stanford and More Than 100 Other Universities

Plus, cheating at Binghamton University and a story on cheating at an elite private high school goes missing.

Issue 9, February 26

Essay Mills, Contract Cheating Sites Invade 100+ College Websites to Promote Their Illicit Services

As I reported for Forbes, researchers at Michigan State and the University of Kentucky have found that more than 100 websites of American colleges were hacked or otherwise compromised by essay mills, the contract cheating providers that sell academic work to students.

Jim Ridolfo (UK) and William Hart-Davidson (MSU) found a coordinated, planned pattern of hacking, attacks and information manipulation by these illicit cheating companies in top-level college domains. A complete list of schools, with a map, is in their research, linked above.

“If you Google something like essay help and Stanford,” Ridolfo said, “you’ll get school content injected by essay mills or find pages that redirect you to their services.”

Some essay selling services have even been so bold as to embed live chat features in university sites. If you go to a university resource page seeking help and click the “chat” feature, you’re connected with paid cheating sites.  

In another example, a resource page for students with dyslexia at the University of Michigan was infected with predatory information, a “compromised recomposition,” according to the research. Then that page was shared on Facebook and re-shared by other institutions and dyslexia support centers as if it were legitimate.

The pair looked for compromised pages and content from just 14 known essay mills, not nearly every essay provider or type of paid cheating.

Even though this research uncovered more than 100 instances, Hart-Davidson and Ridolfo clearly say this is more of a warning sign than a solution - like finding a single termite or two instead of the whole nest. “We think the scope of this is much bigger, we only did a small sampling,” Ridolfo said.

More Cheating - Binghamton University and Elite Harvard-Westlake High School

According to the student paper of Harpur College of Arts and Sciences at Binghamton University (NY), (February 22) the university, “has been battling a stark increase in academic dishonesty cases.” The article quotes an official e-mail:

Overall, violations of the academic honesty code have increased significantly in 2020

And

Since 2006, we’ve averaged 83 minor infractions of the honesty code in [Harpur College] each year and 12 major [Category II] infractions. 2020 saw 143 minor infractions and 23 major infractions by my count.

The reason for the increase in dishonesty cases? “Online testing,” the article says.

Much of this has involved exams — specifically, the use of websites for ‘expert help’ and unauthorized collaboration during exams via various online discussion platforms.

Then there’s the old standby, plagiarism. Quoting the e-mail again,

About half the time, instructors catch plagiarism by noticing shifts in student writing. The other half are caught by Turnitin.

Meanwhile, in LA, the super-elite, private high school Harvard-Westlake posted an article in its student paper (February 20) on “significant increases in academic dishonesty.” The article, subsequently missing from the paper’s website, reported “23 cases involving cheating and academic dishonesty” saying that

these cases represented only a portion of the cases which occurred during the second quarter, and the total number of cases this school year has surpassed twice that of last year’s.

Head of Upper School Beth Slattery said she interpreted the increases in cheating as a side effect of online learning.

“I think it’s tempting to students when information is right there, and they perceive that no one is watching,” Slattery said. “I also think remote learning is more challenging for many students, so they feel the need to cheat to keep up with how they performed in person.”

The article also has my favorite quote of the year on cheating.

“I think that the reason why most kids would cheat [on an exam] or feel the need to do so is when they don’t know any of the information and don’t want to do poorly,” [a student] said. 

Harvard-Westlake tuition is $41,000 and the school had a cheating incident in 2008 during which students were expelled or suspended. The school did not respond to an inquiry regarding the increase in cheating citations or why the article was no longer on the website. An archived copy of the article is here.

In the next “The Cheat Sheet” - Ed Surge podcast looks at Chegg and the major increase in cheating.