Chinese bank techie finds ATM flaw that lets him withdraw $1 million

In a turn of events no lesser than a Hollywood flick, a senior programmer with a Chinese bank managed to dupe the company of $1 million USD over a period of two years.

Qin Qinsheng was a manager in Beijing’s Huaxia Bank’s technology development centre when he spotted a loophole in the bank’s core operating system. This loophole did not record the withdrawals made during midnight, and Qinsheng could use simple programming scripts to suppress the alert which would be triggered. Since 2016, Qinsheng has made over 1300 withdrawals, amassing a fortune of 7.179 million yuan (over $1 million), as per a report in Sina news.

Qinsheng was caught in 2018 when the chief information officer of Huaxia Bank alerted that a person had implanted a Trojan virus into the bank's procedures and that the loss had been discovered was about 7 million yuan. Qinsheng was arrested and charged for theft after the report.

Qinsheng stated that he was just testing the systems of the bank, and the money was safe to be returned. Though the bank accepted his statements and asked to drop the charges, the court pressed charges and sentenced him to 10 and a half years in prison, along with an 11,000 yuan fine.