VCAA confirms website hacked, says VCE exam papers not accessed

November 11, 2026 — 7:41pm

Victoria’s Curriculum Assessment Authority has confirmed its website was hacked on Wednesday evening, but is denying the hacker’s claims that they accessed this year’s exam papers.

About 6pm, a message laced with profanities appeared on VCAA’s homepage, authored by someone using the alias “DaggerElite”, claiming to have hacked the site and sold VCE exams to “hundreds of students statewide”.

The hacker claimed they had breached the security of not only VCAA, but the authority’s external printing providers, from which they had downloaded the VCE exams. They then claimed to have sent the exams to the students via an email address belonging to a law firm, whose system they also hacked.

“The success of their campaign could not have been possible without all their help together,” they wrote with mock gratitude.

The hacker then claimed the success of this year’s program would allow them to start selling exams for 2027 much earlier.

In a statement, VCAA confirmed its site had been hacked and it was now investigating how extensive the hack was.

“There is no indication that exam papers from today or previous weeks have been accessed,” it said in a brief.

The hack comes just two years after the government ordered a review into the 2024 exam period after VCAA unintentionally published 56 test papers that gave thousands of students an advantage over others.

VCAA’s then-chief executive Kylie Smith resigned after the bungle, before the board was sacked in 2025.

There were also errors in papers in the 2022 and 2023 exam periods, which prompted other reviews.

The 2026 VCE exam period still has a week to run, concluding with language exams on November 18. Results are set to be released on December 10.

More to come

Alexander Darling is a breaking news reporter at The Age. He has previously worked at the ABC, as well as Horsham’s Wimmera Mail-Times and Triple M radio stations in NSW.Connect via email.

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