A pair of Canadian high schoolers decided to spend their lunch hour finding out if they could successfully hack into a nearby Bank of Montreal ATM. Turns out they totally could.
“We thought it would be fun to try it, but we were not expecting it to work,” one of the hackers, Matthew Hewlett, told the Winnipeg Sun. “When it did, it asked for a password.”
But the boys were so polite that once they gained control of the machine, they didn’t steal any money — instead, they went inside to inform the bank about the little security problem. Staff members didn’t believe them, so they went back to the machine to get proof. They printed off documentation about withdrawals, and even changed the surcharge amount to one cent.
The boys did manage to have a bit of fun, though. They changed the ATM’s home screen greeting from “Welcome to the BMO ATM” to “Go away. This ATM has been hacked.”
Eventually, the branch manager came out to chat with the teens and essentially treat them as one-time security consultants. Then he sent them back to school with a note excusing their tardiness because oh yeah they’re in high school and yet they’re so much smarter and more helpful than most adults we know.
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