Lufthansa warns: Why you should treat the boarding pass like cash

Created: 09/26/2022, 15:00

By: Franziska Kaindl

Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr points out that passengers should take good care of their boarding pass.

Apparently he fell victim to a gap in his own IT system.

Airline passengers should keep their boarding pass close at all times.

Not only because it has to be shown when boarding the aircraft, but also because it contains sensitive data.

report,

Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr recently pointed this out.

He himself was apparently the victim of a loophole in the IT system.

The QR code contains sensitive data of airline customers.

© Malte Christians/dpa

Sensitive data stolen: Lufthansa informs about loophole in boarding cards

Using the QR code on the CEO's boarding pass, strangers were able to gain access to his data - including his email address and cell phone number.

In addition to information about the specific flight, the service card number of frequent flyers can also be read from a boarding pass.

Along with the customer's last name, strangers theoretically have the ability to filter out the booking in question, print boarding passes or change the shipping method for boarding documents on the Lufthansa website, according to the report.

An additional PIN is therefore only required to log into the customer's user profile.

According to

known and confirmed that cell phone numbers or e-mail addresses can be read out, provided these are stored.

You should urgently avoid these mistakes in travel cancellation insurance

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Lufthansa: boarding pass should be guarded like cash

According to a Lufthansa spokesman, there is no security risk, but the company is working on new standards for the industry via a business unit called "Digital Hangar".

However, the protection of the data is in the hands of the customers: “We recommend our passengers to be very careful with the flight documents.

They are to be treated like cash.”