Students grind out free coffee breaks for a week after hacking library vending machine

STUDENTS tricked a university out of more than £1,500 worth of coffee by “hacking” a vending machine to give them free drinks. A fault meant that entering “1234” on the keypad triggered the dispenser.

The access code was shared among students for a week until engineers were brought in to fix the machine. In that time, hot drinks worth £1,600 were dispensed for free in the University of Glasgow’s library.

The default pin code has now been changed, meaning students will have to pay for their drinks again. The university insisted that the issue was an internal one. A spokesman said: “I can confirm that there was a fault with one hot drinks vending machine situated in the library.

“Hot drinks with a cost to the university of £1,600 were dispensed before the fault was picked up. The issue was reported to the vending machine company and it has now been fixed.

“The police were not called in or had any involvement in this internal university issue.”