Prior to having the ability of your boarding pass to be digitally downloaded to our smartphones, millions of americans printed out their airline boarding pass on a printer. This ritual took place somewhere between leaving your house or hotel and heading to the airport. That printed boarding pass was your ticket through airport security and the departure gate so, naturally, you kept it in a safe until you’re on the plane.
But it’s what you do with that boarding pass after you have checked in and boarded the plane that can inflict pain to you and your accrued flight miles. Do you use it to bookmark the airline’s in-flight magazine? Tuck it into the seatback pocket? Hold on to it slam-dunk it in the wastebasket in your hotel room? Or, worse, do you take a photo of your boarding pass and share it on social media? Any of those moves could be a gift to hackers.
The #1 no-no that passengers do with their boarding pass is leave it behind on the plane. What people don’t realize is that the boarding pass contains all your personal information encoded in that simple bar code on the boarding pass. Paper boarding passes that aren’t safeguarded make it easier for hackers to target the stockpile of frequent flyer miles you’ve spent years building. To a scam artist, it's really the laundry list of things you need to take over a frequent flyer account.
Cracking your personal information contained on your boarding pass is not difficult for a hacker. All they need is your name, your booking reference number and your frequent flyer number. Those generally are on all boarding passes contained within the bar code.
Other items that airlines add to a passengers account can be a phone number and email address. Some or all of those things are on the boarding pass you left behind on the plane or casually threw away. Once a hacker has your personal information they can use that information in several different ways.
Sell portions of miles for currency: Miles are sold on the black web for hundreds or thousands of dollars. Depending on what airlines you fly and the value that airline places on those miles, it can put cash in a hacker’s pocket. For example, Delta values their miles at 1.7 cents each while American values their miles at 2.6 cents each. So 100,000 sold on the black market could fetch a hacker $1,700 to $2,600.
Sell your entire account for cash: This method can be even more lucrative to the hacker since now what is sold is not only the accrued miles in the account but access to the full account with other vital information. With access to the full frequent flier account number, a scammer can then get the “secret treasure trove” of information like mothers’ maiden name or a passengers social media history to log into the account. From there, the hacker can wreak havoc by changing or canceling your future reservations, stealing any future frequent flier points a passenger may think they are getting.
Transfer the miles into another account: The hacker can transfer the stolen miles into a legitimate account and keep adding to that account in the future from other stolen air miles. Most people aren’t watching their accrued miles or points like their bank account. A hacker can find it relatively easy to use your miles or points in ways that may be very difficult to trace. It's also easy to turn points into gift cards or into travel and lots of other things that can be used immediately or sold.
The #2 no-no passengers make is taking photos of their pass and sharing it on social media. For example, on Instagram there is one hashtag that currently includes more than 100,000 photos of passenger boarding passes, many of which display an entire boarding pass with precisely the information a hacker would need. This potentially can be even worse than leaving your printed boarding pass behind on the plane. Now instead of just one person finding your pass and doing wrong things, you open yourself up to thousands of people that could possibly steal your information.
So how do you protect yourself against thieves and hackers getting your airline account information?
Use a mobile boarding pass: Almost all airlines now have the capacity to use this method to provide you a boarding pass for your flight. Once you make your flight reservations you check which method you want your pass delivered to you. Checking mobile will send your pass directly to your phone in the form of a square bar code. This barcode will come up on your smartphone the day of your flight.
It is a default (placed in your smartphones wallet app) and is the first thing that appears once you tap your phone. It can be used to get through security, TSA and board the plane. If your flight contains multiple stops for your trip, there will be additional passes for each flight segment.
Shred your paper boarding pass: If you must print your boarding pass, keep it secured at all times and don’t leave it out where someone could quickly scan it or snap a quick picture. And definitely don’t forget it in the seatback pocket of the plane. Once you’ve made it home, go ahead and shred it.
Never post photos of your boarding pass: You don’t need to post your friends on social media that you are flying that day by showing a picture of your boarding pass. Remember the Instagram theory. It can only cause you pain and grief.
Enable a two-factor authentication on your frequent flyer account: This is similar to what Facebook offers when you log onto your account. It is a code that has to be entered for anyone prior to logging into your account, even yourself. It would be generated by the airline account when anyone wants to log on. It provides much needed backup security to prevent anyone from fraudulently accessing your account.
We have to remember that we live in an age of advancing technology that will only increase exponentially in the future. Though this technology makes it easier for all of us to do more things with greater speed and accuracy, it can also be the key for hackers and thieves to steal the things that we cherish. Take steps to protect yourself against any unwanted intrusion into your personal information.