Experts warn: Reservation systems of plane tickets are exposed to security risks

World News Adina Camarasu
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Experts have warned: The reservation systems when trying to book plane tickets are exposed to some major security risks.

The main air travelling booking websites do not have adequate systems for airline passenger authentification. This fact may easily allow the theft of personal data, cyber security experts have warned, quoted by the newspaper agency website Reuters.

Passengers’ database is used when booking plane tickets and it contains all the important identity data, as well as the passengers’ itinerary, phone number, email contacts, bank card number and details about the luggage.

For each passenger are used unique six-digit codes, but they are even less secure than the usernames and passwords used to access the classic email address, shows a study conducted by the Berlin Institute for Security Studies (SRLabs).

Most plane tickets are purchased online through three global systems – Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport and also through the websites of major airline companies.

‘Booking codes can be found on the Internet with minimal effort’, says a SRLabs expert, Karsten Nohl, who elaborated the report together with Nemanja Nikodijevic.

‘Amadeus is examining the conclusions reached by SRLabs. We will keep this in mind and work with our industry partners to address the issues raised here and look for solutions. Clearly, Amadeus protects their systems, including Check My Trip, from robotic automated attacks highlighted in this report’, responded a spokesman, according to Reuters.

‘We have many security filters. The issue of how to maintain our security and protect the private data of passengers is undermining our security systems’, declared Sabre.

Travelport did not respond to Reuters’ requests to provide a reaction.