School IT administrators know that some students will do anything to breach network security systems designed to block inappropriate web sites and keep students on task. When a group of school district IT chiefs met recently to discuss the challenges of reining in students armed with tech savvy and a determination to wreak network havoc, their tales were cautionary—but their advice could prove valuable as computers become more common in K-12 schools.

Nearly a dozen school network administrators met July 1 at the National Education Computing Conference (NECC) in San Antonio, where thousands of educators from across the country came to see the latest in classroom technology. During a breakfast meeting, school district IT chiefs suggested recruiting students to help expose network vulnerabilities and warned of a new threat to campus computer security: "war driving."

Lloyd Brown, director of technology and information services for Virginia's Henrico County Public Schools, said tech-savvy students in his district recently rallied a group of 30 peers to meet in the quad during their school's lunch break. Sitting side by side, the students continuously hit the F5 key on their laptops, which refreshes a web page—devouring the school's internet bandwidth—and eventually broke through the school system's network filter, allowing students to view pornographic web sites. School IT officials from across the county were concerned about the security breach, Brown said, because laptops are becoming more commonplace—especially in high schools.

Searching for a quick solution, Brown met with officials from 8e6 Technologies, a company that provides internet filtering and reporting solutions for school systems nationwide, and found a fix: Henrico would maintain a detailed log of computers that attempted to view "blocked" web pages. Once the action was logged, that computer's internet connection was cut off, and school administrators could take disciplinary action against students who tried to subvert the network and its security measures.

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This tactic cut down on incidents of student hacking, but Brown said he wanted to recruit students smart enough to find ways around the school system's comprehensive security package. After eight students were suspended for 10 days for violating the district's acceptable-use rules, Brown hired the group and had them work part-time with district IT employees. The students were charged with "finding the weak spots" in Henrico's network. Once district IT officials saw how students worked their way around the periphery of the network, they quickly made alterations—eliminating vulnerabilities that were being exposed by an increasing number of students.