Belgian Man Imprisoned For Hacking A number of Airways For Cheaper Tickets

A Belgian man who goes by the identify ‘Kevin D’ has been sentenced by a courtroom in Mechelen to a few years in jail for numerous laptop hacking incidents, that embody hacking quite a few airline web sites for cheaper flight tickets, reviews by Geeko and Le Soir.

‘Kevin D’, who had carried out cyber assaults for the reason that age of 12, hacked into a number of American Airways web sites in 2017 as a way to get cheaper airplane tickets.

In complete, the Belgian man dedicated 21 fraudulent airline ticket reservations in hopes of buying cheaper flight tickets.

His numerous cyber assaults enabled him to purchase 10 enterprise class tickets with out paying for them, acquire entry to the airline’s loyalty program, acquire workers and buyer knowledge, and entry data on inside procedures at American Airways and airports within the US served by the corporate.

The estimated damages incurred by the hacking amounted to over $200,000 (£172,000).

However this isn’t the primary case of airline hacking as earlier within the yr a person hacked an Indian airline’s web site to trace his lacking baggage. The person admitted to not being an skilled hacker however one way or the other was nonetheless in a position to hack the low-cost airline’s web site.

Along with American Airways, Kevin D additionally dedicated comparable acts in opposition to Brussels Airways, Mobistar, Utopolis, and Lufthansa. The sentence handed down in mid-August 2022 by the Mechelen courts mirrored that it wasn’t the primary offence.

The person was first arrested in Milan in October 2021 and has remained in jail in Italy. As a result of offences in opposition to an American firm, the US requested Belgium to extradite him in order that he might face a penalty of twenty-two to 45 years in jail, a far longer sentence than the one he obtained in Belgium, the place he carried out the acts.

Belgium opposes his extradition to the US.

If the Belgian judgment guidelines on the cancellation of the extradition to the US and the American justice rejects the Belgian judgment, the defendant will not be capable of depart the territory. In any other case, he dangers arrest and extradition to the US.

With hackers admitting how simple it’s for them to entry airline servers, will airways take a greater method to enhance their cybersecurity? Tell us your ideas.