Can a hacked DLL make you rich? New evidence has emerged in a 2015 case, revealing that the security officer of one companyOPAP-style lottery software in the US used malicious DLL files to predict winning lottery numbers, according to a publication by The Des Moines Register.
The case first came to light in April 2015 when authorities began the trial of Eddie Tipton, 53, the former director of information security for the Multi-State Lottery Association (MSLA).
In July of that year, Tipton was convicted of two counts of fraud in the Hot Lotto lottery on suspicion of "winning" $ 14,3 million.
The prosecutors, however, could not prove how Tipton managed to guess the right numbers. In order to receive the profits, he then asked for help from Robert Clark Rhodes II, 46 years old, from Sugarland, Texas.
Immediately after Tipton's arrest, MSLA began security audits of the company's computers in an effort to discover how he managed to manipulatetreatmentin the lottery system, but the technicians did not find anything suspicious. On the other hand, during the checks carried out by the police they discovered a hacked DLL on one of the computers responsible for generating the random numbers used for the lottery.
The hacked DLL was identical to the original, except that it had two extra blocks in its code. These two blocks were added by Tipton and helped him add a different algorithm to the random number generator.
Tipton was responsible for programming these computers in all MSLA segments across the country, and so the hacked DLL existed in company systems across the country.
Prosecutors say they have found evidence of set ups in Iowa, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Wisconsin. Detecting the malicious DLL was quite difficult as it was scheduled to be deleted after a while.
Prosecutors also blamed Tipton's brother Tommie Tipton, for whom they filed a lawsuit.
Authorities suspect that Tommie Tipton, a former police officer, helped his brother to collect the winnings from Oklahoma, Colorado, and Wisconsin.
Overall, the authorities report that the two brothers set six draws between 2005 and 2011, which earned them 16.500.000 dollars.
