Featured Image Credit: Youtube/WIRED
Topics: Technology, Crime, Viral, Reddit, YouTube
Joe Yates
A hacker has proven just how easy it could be to rob a bank.
Cyber security consultant Jayson E. Street captured footage of him gaining access to the bank's computer system within seconds of walking through the doors.
He walked into the unnamed branch with nothing but a fake Microsoft badge for credentials, and without speaking to anyone, he gained access to a computer.
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While what he did may seem illegal, he was hired by the corporation to demonstrate how easy it was to hack into the bank's online system.
In fact, he would have indeed committed a real life crime if he wasn't hired by them.
In his recording, the bank manager is seen tamely interrogating him, and when he flashes his phoney card at him, he immediately gets escorted into to the bank's data server room.
Working alongside technology magazine WIRED last year, he narrates over the recording and explains how he did it.
Street says: "When I was conducting a physical 'pen test' on a bank here you can see me going in and compromising the first machine within 15 seconds."
A 'pen test', short for penetration test, is Street's bread and butter and in the simplest terms, it involves a hacker or security expert hired to try and break into a company's security.
The reason for it is so that the organization can learn from it if they do manage to hack in. If the hacker is unable to break in, they can understood the strength of their security.
When the manager approaches him, Street tells him: "I'm just here to do the USB audit, so I need to look at your computer real quick. Okay?"
He then explains how the manager shows him into the data server room to 'leave me unattended in the vault'.
He says: "I gave him no documentation, no validation all it took was a forged Microsoft employee badge to get me all this access."
A snippet of the YouTube video went viral on Reddit, and one user explained he encounters it on a daily basis working in IT.
They wrote: "As someone who works in communications/IT, it is that easy to get people to let you into rooms at most places.
"Show even the most basic kinda badge and say your there to check on shit and they will just unlock shit and leave.
"I've had people open multiple locked doors for me and leave something to prop the doors so they didn't have to keep opening it and all I said was I'm here to work on so and so."
While another commented on the social media platform: "Most people don't care, and staff aren't paid to care, the data/ money is insured.