In a report from the Associated Press, it appears that 364 prison inmates from Idaho were recently caught in a scheme discovered earlier this month which involved hacking the prison tablets and stealing nearly a quarter of a million dollars by transferring various sums of money to their own accounts.The tablets in question were JPay tablets which can be found in prisons across the country. They are used by prison inmates where they can use it for emails, music, and games. However it seems that according to Idaho Department of Correction spokesman Jeff Ray, the inmates were discovered to be “intentionally exploiting a vulnerability within JPay to improperly increase their JPay account balances”.
Some inmates credited their accounts with $1,000, while there was one inmate who was particularly daring and transferred $10,000 making it the largest amount credited. The total amount of money that was ultimately transferred was at $225,000. According to Ray, “This conduct was intentional, not accidental. It required a knowledge of the JPay system and multiple actions by every inmate who exploited the system’s vulnerability to improperly credit their account.”
JPay has since managed to recover $65,000 worth of credits and have suspended the ability of inmates to download music and games until they compensate the company for their losses. In the meantime those who were caught have been issued disciplinary offense reports which means that certain privileges could be lost, and some could even be reclassified to a higher security level.
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