VCAA Website Hacked During VCE Exams, Authority Says No Sign Papers Were Accessed
VCAA website hacked: a defacement claimed VCE papers were stolen and sold. The Victorian exam authority says nothing shows papers were accessed and exams go ahead.
The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), which sets and runs the VCE exams for Victoria's final-year students, confirmed on Wednesday 11 November that its website had been hacked, with exams still under way. A spokesperson told the ABC there is "no indication that exam papers from today or previous weeks have been accessed", and that a forensic investigation will establish how far the attack went.
What appeared on the site
A message laced with profanities went up on the home page at about 6pm Melbourne time, signed "DaggerElite", The Age reports. It criticised security standards at the VCAA and several other providers. The site then showed an error page, and later a notice that it is "currently undergoing maintenance".
What the attacker claims
The VCAA hasn't confirmed any of it.
The message says the 2026 papers were taken "from the printing provider's internal file servers", a company it doesn't name, and emailed to students with each copy "individualised with an identifiable signature embedded in it". It thanks "those who purchased an Official VCA 2026 Exam" and talks of selling 2027 papers early.
The attacker says the emails went out using email details from a legal service provider. GoAhead Lawyers, whose address the emails reportedly used, suspects its email address was spoofed by a third party: "Our checks so far have found no record of the reported emails in our systems", the firm told The Age.
The 2024 exam leak
The authority's whole board was sacked in April 2025 after live exam questions were found hidden in cover sheets posted online, a leak that touched 65 of the 116 VCE exams in 2024. This April the state put more than A$222 million into rebuilding the authority. The opposition's education spokesperson has sought a briefing from the department and VCAA.
What the VCAA says
In its statement to The Age, the VCAA called the defacement "vandalism". It has reported the incident to Victoria Police and says exams continue as normal. The VCE exams run through to 18 November.
The authority hasn't said how the site was broken into.
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