A French citizen has unintentionally breached the security of the French central bank (Banque de France) over the phone and was freed by French authorities after being accused of “hacking” the central bank’s and triggering a 48-hours shut down of that particular computer system which handles the consumer indebtedness files (basically people who are flagged as having a very bad credit history).

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The man was trying to go around the paid telephone consumer support system and got from Internet forums what he thought was a direct-line to the central bank employees (yes, in France, you have to pay for most form of telephone support). When asked for a code by an automated system, he entered 123456 and it worked – he had just breached the central bank’s security.

It gets better: according to the man’s attorney, 654321 would have worked as well. It looks like the French central bank password is using a checksum based on additions or other very simple methods… (lol, scary). Maybe it’s time to “beef-up” security…

Filed in . Read more about France and Security.