An Australian pizza boy who hacked into ATMs and changed their settings before stealing around A$30,000 in under an hour has escaped a prison term, according to local press reports.
In 2007, Brian Sommer, 23, used information he found on the Internet and in an ATM handbook to hack into cash machine hard drives and change their settings, enabling him to withdraw huge amounts of money.
He stole A$21,120 from an ATM at a service station in Bundaberg, Queensland, before taking a further A$7500 from another machine in nearby Hervey Bay, according to the Fraser Coast Chronicle.
However, his plan had a major flaw - to make the withdrawals he used his own card and those of his mother, girlfriend and two friends.
Sommer was charged with one count of computer hacking to gain benefits to the value of A$5000 or more and two attempted computer hacking offences.
Prosecutors called for a two year jail term but the judge decided a conviction should not be entered after Sommer agreed to pay the money back and applied to become an avionics technician in the Australian Defence Force.
Free money too good to be true - Fraser Coast Chronicle