Investigators with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) have raided the home of a local driving instructor who allegedly hacked the province’s wait list for road tests, suspecting that the man used a bot to help with his scheme.
The instructor’s identity has not been publicly disclosed, as he has not been charged with any offence.
According to court documents obtained by CBC News, the suspect was able to book road tests for his students in as little as two days, when the wait typically takes as long as three months for regular test takers.
The instructor’s IP address has been associated to hundreds of suspicious transactions that involved the reservation of road test slots for his clients, a search warrant for the instructor’s home read.
"There are a number of transactions that are occurring within seconds or simultaneously to other related transactions," the warrant explained.
"This type of activity is not humanly possible and is believed to be being completed by a computer program or 'BOT.'"
Although the ICBC would not comment on any active criminal investigations, it did confirm that its special investigations unit has been proactively monitoring the online booking system for road tests for any misuse. The insurer’s latest investigation began October last year, after a routine shutdown of the computer program that manages the driver examination appointment system.
When the computer was reactivated, programmers found that five entities had made repeated attempts to access the system but failed the CAPTCHA tests – which are designed to differentiate human users from bots.
Investigators have since suspected that someone was trying to sneak a program running inside the ICBC system that could "auto block, release and book future road test appointments." They believe the bot works by booking an appointment for one person in advance to hold a time block. It then later rebooks that person into another slot while inserting a new client into the original appointment.
A total of 10 IP addresses were traced from the computer logs. These addresses were responsible for the most traffic on the system within a two-week period following the shutdown. An address associated with the suspect was the most active, with more than 30,000 transactions.
CBC News reported that Chinese-language ads for the instructor’s driving school were offering “48-hour express” road test appointments.
As part of the investigation, the RCMP conducted a sting operation with a Mandarin-speaking officer going undercover as a driving school student. When the officer asked how much the testing would cost, the instructor said it was $300. The suspect also indicated that he accepted cash only as payments.
