Court charges dev with hacking after cybersecurity issue disclosure

A freelance IT consultant discovered that a merchandise management application connected to a remote MySQL server over the Internet using a plaintext password embedded in the vendor's executable, exposing the data of nearly 700,000 customers. After notifying the vendor and a tech blogger, the vendor took the server offline but reported the consultant to police; a German court later fined the consultant for unauthorized access under Section 202c, and the consultant has appealed.