Hungry hackers stole $3k worth of snacks from CIA vending machines over several months

Any business or organisation that provides its employees with vending machines has to make sure its security is up to standard. At UKVending we pride ourselves on the quality of our systems, so it came as a bit of shock when we discovered that one of the world’s premier security organisations, the Central Intelligence Agency in the United States no less, had a problem with stolen candy bars.

Another surprising fact was that it took the CIA months to discover the culprits in the scheme within their own building that saw thousands of dollars worth of candy goes missing.

The events took place in 2013, but were only recently declassified by the American Government. A team of hi tech snack thieves stole £3,300 worth of chocolate bars, crisps and other snacks from CIA vending machines. The vending machines worked off special cards that need to have their available funds topped up regularly. One of the people involved worked out that if he were to disconnect a number of cables it would enable the machine to dispense unlimited amounts of food, even with a card that had a zero available balance of credit.

Once he had discovered the flaw in the system he told friends who did the same and they too helped themselves to the bounty in the vending machines. The theft then went unnoticed for months but when they did discover it CIA managers placed surveillance cameras, (something the CIA know a bit about we think!), in place and ended the scam.

The perpetrator and the others who had stolen candy were promptly fired.