Rochester Public School listserv
May 12, 2025
•[ misconfiguration, insider threat, email abuse ]
Rochester School District officials reported that students and staff were bombarded with sexually explicit and threatening emails after a student exploited a misconfiguration in an email distribution list. The distribution list had been inadvertently configured with broader permissions than intended, allowing a student to send an unauthorized mass message to a large number of student accounts across grade levels. The districts technology team worked to identify the source, recall the messages, and correct the permission setting; students were then blocked from sending to distribution groups. The incident primarily affected communications integrity and student safety, rather than causing extended operational downtime.
