VCAA website hack and claimed VCE exam paper sale, Digi Mart USA News (Victoria, Australia): The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority’s website was hacked during the state’s year 12 exam period, with the culprit posting a message of expletives and claiming without evidence to have accessed student papers.
On Wednesday evening, a message attributed to someone using the alias “DaggerElite” appeared on the VCAA homepage banner, claiming to have sold exam papers to “hundreds of students” across the state. The poster also alleged that VCAA had “dogshit security standards” that allowed them to download a copy of 2026 exam papers from internal file servers.
A VCAA spokesperson strongly refuted the claims, calling them “fabricated” and saying there was “no evidence at all” that any VCE exams had been accessed or leaked. “These are false claims designed for financial gain from the exploitation of anxious students,” they said.
The hacker also claimed to have sent the exams to students from an email address belonging to the law firm Go Ahead Lawyers. A spokesperson for the firm said it was “not involved in the reported hacking incident” and that a review found no evidence of unauthorised access to its email systems, suspecting a third party had spoofed its address.
On Thursday morning, the VCAA website displayed a message saying it was “undergoing maintenance”. VCAA chief executive Andrew Smith told ABC Radio Melbourne the body was working to restore the site as a “matter of urgency” and that the likelihood exam papers could be downloaded from secure printers was “very, very low”.
A Victorian government spokesperson said year 12 exams were “stressful enough without someone trying to vandalise the system”, adding that the VCE exams will continue as normal. The incident has been reported to Victoria police.
The incident follows a difficult period for the VCAA. In 2024, the state government ordered a review of the exam period after 56 of 116 test papers were unintentionally published before they were sat, and the chief executive later resigned and the board was dismissed in 2025. The VCE exam period began on 5 October and runs until 18 November, with 24 exams remaining.
