Man “Hacks” Bank of France by Mistake, Judge Lets Him Off the Hook

French authorities accused a French man from the region of Brittany of hacking into the systems of Bank of France – considered to be one of the country’s most secure financial institutions. His lawyer told the judge that it was all a mistake.

According to Le Nouvel Observateur, the incident occurred back in 2008 when the suspect had been using Skype to make phone calls in order to avoid premium-rate numbers. He entered a random phone number and then typed “123456.”

This operation granted him access to the debt service of Bank of France. However, the alleged hacker didn’t know what he had accessed.

The bank immediately picked up the “hack” attempt and started tracing him down. Although he didn’t hide his real identity on Skype, it took authorities two years to track him because the instant messaging service provider was headquartered in Luxembourg.

In 2010, when police showed up at his house, they saw that the computer he had been using was too old to commit any cybercrimes, but they decided to arrest him anyway.

Now, the judge agreed that there was no ill-intent on the man’s side and let him off the hook.