//

Online ticket booking platform Tiket.com first reported the case to the police in November 2016

The Indonesian National Police announced on Tuesday that it has arrested a group of hackers for hacking into online ticket booking platform Tiket.com and stealing up to IDR4.1 billion (US$300,000)-worth of airline tickets through the platform, according to several media reports.

Led by a 19-year-old man identified only as SH, the hacker group consists of four young men with the oldest being 27-year-old. They were being detained in various locations in Indonesia, from Ciputat (Banten province) to Balikpapan (East Borneo province).

According to Jakarta Globe, partnership between ticket booking platforms and airlines work by the airline allocating a certain ticket quota for each booking platform, which usually pays for the tickets in advance.

The alleged perpetrators hacked into Tiket.com’s platform to access ticket pool for budget airline Citilink Indonesia, and eventually sold the tickets on Facebook.

The group conducted their action in October last year and had admitted to make around IDR600 million (US$45,000) from the crime.

Tiket.com first reported the case in November 2016, when the startup suspected its platform was being hacked.

e27 is reaching out to Tiket.com for comments.

Also Read: JAKU, emails, and shadow IT: Just some of latest global cybersecurity threats facing your business

A lost genius?

The hacking case has stolen the attention of Indonesian netizens. Not only that it raised even more concerns for the security of e-commerce platforms in the country, but also because of the young age of the alleged perpetrators.

SH admitted that he had hacked into 4,237 foreign and local websites to deface it, and this list includes websites belonging to the National Police itself and ride-hailing startup Go-Jek.

Even more interesting is the fact that SH is a junior high school drop-out who taught himself to hack by looking up materials online.

“He is quite sophisticated and the website was also not that hard to hack,” said Adj. Comr. Idam Wasiadi of the Indonesian National Police cyber crime unit.

Many netizens opined that considering his talent, instead of arresting the young man, authorities should have worked together with him to fight cyber crime.

SH himself said that he had used the money made from the crime to buy a Ducati motorbike.

—

Image Credit: bowie15 / 123RF Stock Photo

The post Tiket.com gets hacked by a group of teenagers, lost US$300K-worth of airline tickets appeared first on e27.

from e27 http://ift.tt/2oHe3yR