In a shocking event of cyber crime, it is revealed that Rs. 72 million worth of E-Tickets were stolen by various individuals and Air Travel Agents through Pakistan International Airline (PIA) website, reported Dunya Newspaper.
Report said that tickets were stolen for more than a year and it was only recently that PIA administration found out the flaw in their website that lead to free reservation of 5757 air travel tickets for all sorts of destinations across the globe.
Government officials confirmed the incident and said that details of the cyber crime will be presented during on-going session of National Assembly.
It merits mentioning here that PIA had started offering E-Ticketing service through its websites for over two years ago but had halted the service recently after finding out about the scandal.
According to report, these tickets were reserved through PIA websites and were re-sold to end-users who travelled on the stolen tickets without getting caught by PIA administration.
Report claims that PIA website had essential security loopholes that lead the Air Travel Agents to freely reserve E-Tickets.
Interestingly, the security loophole was misused by agents for over a year and no-one from PIA was able to track it.
A cyber security expert, while explaining the possibilities to ProPakistani, said that it is likely that PIA administration was involved in the crime. He opined that Travel Agents are usually not that tech-savvy and may not have found the bug without external help.
PIA said that it is making efforts to recover the money and some Rs. 10 milion were already recovered.
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