A BRIGHT young Chinese undergraduate on a scholarship to study here was accused on Friday of hacking into computers at his alma mater, Raffles Junior College (RJC).

According to Subordinate Court documents, 21-year-old Zhao Ke is alleged to have illegally accessed a 'system administrator' account this March.

Using this account, he then installed a hacking program called 'Lanhelper' to steal information from computers used by RJC teachers.

System administrator accounts are super accounts that offer the user extra privileges, such as installing programs that a computer's security programs would usually block.

For his actions, Zhao, who said he was now at the National University of Singapore with a scholarship to do a double degree in electrical engineering and economics, was charged with 12 various counts under the Computer Misuse Act.

The prosecution intends to go ahead on two of the 12 charges, one for illegal access and the other for illegal data modification. The remaining 10 will be taken into account during sentencing.

If Zhao is found guilty - and he told the court he intended to plead guilty to the charges - he is looking at up to $15,000 in fines and up to five years in jail for the two offences. His case will be heard next Friday, and he was granted $8,000 bail.

However, it was not clear last night if Zhao had been released. By the time the bail centre closed last night, Zhao had not left the premises. His bail guarantor had also told the court that he was not sure he would put up bail.

Read the full report in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times.