Student Portal Network Security Test

I have written authorisation from our IT department to assess the security of our newly patched student information system. In production we recently suffered a series of intrusions in which determined students managed to alter both grades and tuition balances. We have now isolated the real servers, hardened the perimeter, and spun up a fully segregated dummy portal that mirrors the original weaknesses in data but not in personal information. Your job is to perform a thorough network security analysis against this sandbox environment and tell us, step by step, whether a student-level account can still escalate privileges far enough to change grade and fee records. Scope • The focus is server access control. • Multi-factor authentication is active on all staff-level and system-level accounts; you will see the same barriers the attackers would now face. • I can supply you with a low-privilege “student” login, the current MFA workflow, and any additional technical details you request. Please restrict testing to the dummy portal and stay within the time window we agree upon so normal operations remain unaffected. Deliverables • A concise report describing every method attempted, including traffic captures or command logs. • Proof-of-concept evidence if you succeed in changing any dummy grade or tuition value (screenshots are fine). • Actionable remediation advice ranked by risk and effort. Acceptance The engagement is complete once I can reproduce at least one of your findings or we confirm that no escalation path exists. If you are comfortable working under an explicit authorization letter and focusing on network-level vectors into server access controls behind MFA, I look forward to your proposal.