A history student-turned-hacker hacked into the IT company responsible for publishing the Netherlands government’s budget, got his hands on the 2012 Budget and retweeted it on Twitter.
The student simply changed the URL address for the document from 2010 to 2011 and got his hands on the latest version.
The student, Bram Talman, beat the Dutch media to revealing the Budget, including €3bn in tax increases.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte conceded the document was genuine.
The IT company responsible for protecting the document – Facetbase – would normally put a fake version of the Budget in its place, but the procedure hadn’t been followed this year.
