AMA Request: HBO Intern who sent an integration test email to millions

[anayar]

If there is an intern wielding this much power and tasked with such a daunting project I would (a) like to apply to this internship, screw my years of experience... and (b) I’d like to hear from them.

Can’t just be me?

[aprdm]

It's really easy to do that wrongly... for example, you Q&A or integration tests database has the last back up of prod so that you can test with real data.

Of course you shouldn't do that, but, it's very common out there.

[salawat]

Technically, any tester generally has this level of access if you can manage to at least once justify a prod access grant.

The level of process fail to not have that access revoked when you're done with it... That's another story...

[quickthrower2]

Sounds like an accidental security exploit rather than genuine power