Software bug accidentally makes programmer a millionaire overnight, security investigates
When a software developer's test program ran wild overnight, he arrived at work to find security guards waiting – and a test account mysteriously filled with a fortune.
The incident was reported in The Register's "Who, Me?" Monday morning feature, "in which we share tales of technological messes your fellow readers made."
Working at a 3G telecom startup in the early 2000s, a developer identified as "Trey" created what seemed like a simple payment testing application. The program was designed to send one-cent test transactions every five minutes, using SMS commands to trigger payments. His department head was so impressed with the demo that he requested immediate deployment – a decision that would prove costly.
Three bugs transformed the test program into an aggressive money-printing machine. Instead of processing 1-cent transactions, the program was sending $100 each time due to a misplaced decimal. When a gateway failed, the system didn't wait five minutes between attempts but fired continuously. And rather than alternating between credits and debits, it only credited the test account.
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