A couple of 14-year-old computer whizzes have the Bank of Montreal upgrading its security after the teens hacked an ATM machine.
Matthew Hewlett and Caleb Turon, both Grade 9
students, found an old ATM operators manual online that showed how to
get into the machine’s operator mode.
On Wednesday over their lunch hour, they went to the BMO’s ATM at the Safeway on Grant Avenue to see if they could get into the system.
“We thought it would be fun to try it, but we
were not expecting it to work,” Hewlett said. “When it did, it asked
for a password.”
Hewlett and Turon were even more shocked when
their first random guess at the six-digit password worked. They used a
common default password. The boys then immediately went to the BMO
Charleswood Centre branch on Grant Avenue to notify them.
When they told staff about a security problem with an ATM, they assumed one of their PIN numbers had been stolen, Hewlett said.
“I said, ‘No, no, no. We hacked your ATM. We
got into the operator mode’,” Hewlett said. “He said that wasn’t really
possible and we don’t have any proof that we did it.
“I asked them, ‘Is it alright for us to get proof?’
“He said, ‘Yeah, sure, but you’ll never be able to get anything out of it.’
“So we both went back to the ATM and I got
into the operator mode again. Then I started printing off documentation
like how much money is currently in the machine, how many withdrawals
have happened that day, how much it’s made off surcharges.
