The breach, which has been confirmed by the VCAA, occurred around 6pm on Wednesday night. But the authority says an initial investigation has found no evidence to show that any sensitive data or exam papers have been accessed or stolen.
“There is no indication that exam papers from today or previous weeks have been accessed,” the authority said in a statement, with VCE exams set to continue as normal across the state.
This morning VCAA chief executive Andrew Smith emphasised there was currently no evidence to support the hacker’s claims.
“The claims that they were downloaded from our secure printers don’t stand up at this stage,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.
“The likelihood that an exam could get out in the way that it’s been claimed is very, very low.”
The incident follows major VCE exam mishaps and technical breaches in 2024 and 2023, which prompted a “root and branch” review of the authority which last year found the VCAA lacked the “foundational structures, governance, processes, technology and capabilities that are commonplace in modern organisations”.
In May, $222.2 million in the state budget was allocated to ensure the authority was “set up for the future”.
One secondary teacher from Melbourne who teaches two VCE subjects said she and her colleagues were ‘not at all surprised’ when they found out that the VCAA’s site had been hacked via a teachers’ discussion on Facebook.
“They have a long legacy of not being very rigorous in their ability to stop leaks and hacks. They have a history of screwing things up.”
General sentiment towards the authority was far from positive, the teacher said, and it was now almost expected that something would go wrong in the delivery of VCE exams.
“I think [this latest incident] just confirms what every teacher knows – that we don’t have faith in our assessment body to deliver an exam that isn’t being hacked or leaked.
“There’s a lot of criticism that kids know that they’re sitting an exam and going through a process in which you can’t have faith that it’s going to be fair and that their results aren’t going to be compromised in some way.”
Even though the authority maintains that it appears no exam papers were illegally downloaded by ‘DaggerElite’, the breach has created doubt, confusion and angst for students and their families, the teacher added.
Taking to Reddit to discuss the developing news, one educator lamented that “our poor VCE coordinator is ready to quit with this”.
“…parents read a headline and jump straight on the phone/email to the school to the VCE coordinator… it’s just a hassle not needed at this time of year,” another elaborated.
One posed just how much more ‘embarrassment’ the VCAA could take.
In a message littered with expletives that appeared on the VCAA site on Wednesday evening, the hacker mocked the authority and their ‘dogsh*t security standards’, thanking it for allowing them to “map out this sh*tshow site and learn all about its internals”.
“Another THANK YOU to their select External Printing Providers for their (moreso) sh*t security policies allowing me to log-in to their systems and download a copy of the 2026 Exam papers from their internal file servers. LMFAO!!!...”
The hacker claims they distributed sold copies of 2026 exam papers using email details from GoAhead Lawyers, a legal service provider.
“And before anyone seeing this decides to go ask people on Reddit to share the papers for the next few exams, I would like to remind you that those holding a paper are very well aware that each sent copy is individualised with an identifiable signature embedded in it, and it’s in their best interests to keep their papers to themselves,” the message read.
“This is DaggerElite, and it has been an absolute pleasure working with all of you this year.”
The message appeared on the website until Thursday morning, but has now been replaced with a site mantaintance message that declares ‘we’ll be right back!’.
A VCAA spokesperson has confirmed the breach was under investigation.
“The VCAA is conducting a forensic investigation to determine the extent of the attack,” they said, according to ABC News.
Senior education lecturer Melinda Davis from Swinburne University has reassured students and families that Victoria’s assessment system has multiple safeguards designed to ensure a student’s result reflects what they demonstrated in their exam.
Davis notes that an exam result does not rest on the judgement of one person, with each paper independently assessed, discrepancies between marks reviewed, and any unusual results sent for third marking.
“Students should be reassured that the system is designed to recognise what they have demonstrated, rather than penalise them for circumstances outside their control, and that this is how the VCAA operates even without security hacks.”
Davis advises students to continue to focus on what they can control: completing their exams and trusting the existing assessment processes.
“...The safeguards within the assessment process are designed to ensure their work is assessed fairly and that no student is unfairly affected by this incident.”
