{"id":52793,"date":"2016-09-22T11:53:24","date_gmt":"2016-09-22T18:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mcafee.com\/?p=52793"},"modified":"2025-08-06T09:46:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T16:46:06","slug":"boarding-pass-photo-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/internet-security\/boarding-pass-photo-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Selfies with Boarding Passes: A Silent Cybersecurity Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who doesn\u2019t look forward to their next vacation or holiday? With a simple plane ticket, you can be off to enjoy relaxing family time or to an exotic location. These are chances to let go of worries, which can naturally lead people to be careless. But that also invites danger, as far as cybersecurity is concerned. Take the case of the classic boarding pass photo<\/a>. It\u2019s possible these celebratory snaps may leak your personal data online.<\/p>\n

Travel expert Steve Hui<\/a> ran an experiment to demonstrate just how these photos could spill private information. First, he found a photo of a stranger\u2019s boarding pass. Using key details from it \u2013 namely passenger name and e-ticket number \u2013 he logged into their Delta airlines account. Simply put, data that every traveler should want private was exposed. Hui could see a person\u2019s full itinerary, frequent flyer information, and payment details.<\/p>\n

Now, to pull off this trick, a trickster has to have a boarding pass. How would they find a photo of one? With oversharing quite common in the social media world, photos are often available online. People voluntarily share these photos in their excitement for a trip. For example, a whopping 70,000 photos tagged #boardingpass<\/a> are currently circulating on Instagram. How\u2019s that for a hacker opportunity?<\/p>\n

With social media so prevalent today, some people have wised up. Not everyone will be shocked by the dangers of sharing personal information. In fact, plenty of security-conscious people cleverly use their thumb to cover key details in photos where documents are displayed. Unfortunately, such minimal actions don\u2019t reduce the risk by much. Any boarding pass\u2019 barcode<\/a> can easily be scanned and evaluated with free tools. If a cybercriminal is willing to hunt down photos in the first place, minor obstructions aren\u2019t likely to stop them, when the barcode only takes a few clicks to scan.<\/p>\n

So what would crooks do, armed with this information? The good news is this threat isn\u2019t as worrisome as many other prevalent cybersecurity issues<\/a>. Sure, somebody could change your seat or cancel your ticket. But that\u2019s not likely. After all, cybercriminals are mainly motivated by financial profit. For those purposes, while perpetrators could learn your credit card\u2019s last four digits from your airline account, that\u2019s not exactly having all the numbers required to make a purchase.<\/p>\n

Such abilities are still unnerving though. This hack highlights how easy it is for strangers to gain private information, if we\u2019re careless with our photos. Everyone should take care online to prevent exposing sensitive, personal details to the public\u2014even when expressing excitement for a big getaway.<\/p>\n

Tips to keep in mind to safely take your next selfie:<\/h2>\n