Tokyo University of Foreign Studies said Thursday one of its students gained unauthorized access to its computer system in late October and peeked at the academic results of 59 other students.
The university said it alerted the Metropolitan Police Department, which then started a criminal investigation on suspicion that the student may have breached a law banning unauthorized computer access.
The student created a phishing page resembling the university page that students can use to check on their academic grades as well their class timetables by entering IDs and passwords, it said.
The student at the university's School of International and Area Studies sent emails from Oct. 24 to 26 inviting 222 other students to access the fake website, thus obtaining the IDs and passwords of the students who accessed it, the university said.
The student then used the IDs and passwords to access the university's computer system to check the students' academic results, it said.
The university refrained from identifying the student, or revealing the student's gender or scholastic year.
After being alerted Oct. 28 by a student who received a suspicious email asking for an ID and password, the university posted a message urging students to be on the lookout for similar suspicious emails.
The message alerted the student responsible for the phishing site, who then came clean to the university authorities.