Negative Covid-19 results have increasingly become a requirement for international and even domestic travel around the world. Photo Credit: Getty Images/Gary Landry Jr
The negative Covid-19 test result, purportedly from a company called
Tri-Alta Laboratory Corp., would look real enough to most eyes. It even
has a disclaimer at the bottom cautioning that a negative test doesn't
rule out infection.
But the document, which was obtained by its user on the dark web, is
actually a fraud, though that user says it "worked like a charm" during a
September trip to Puerto Rico.
The user even tells people how to get their own fake Covid-19 test documents.
As negative Covid-19 results have increasingly become a requirement
for international and even domestic travel around the world, fraudulent
test documents like these have become a growing concern. Arrests have
been made for counterfeit Covid-19 test documents in France, Brazil, the
UK and elsewhere.
Now, with Covid-19 vaccination underway, fake vaccination documents have also begun to emerge.
In one exchange on the dark web this month, for example, an
individual who asked for fake vaccination papers was quickly provided
with a template of the CDC's Covid-19 Vaccination Record Card, which
could then be easily filled in.
"The number of fake Covid-19 tests and eventually vaccine results if
they are not digitised is a huge area of concern, not only for us but
for governments and consumers alike," said Nick Careen, senior vice
president for the airport, passenger, cargo and security division at
IATA. "We are aware of a numerous amount of counterfeit test results,
which have cropped up over the last number of weeks in several countries
around the world."
If such fraud becomes prolific enough, IATA worries that it could
weigh on governments when they begin considering border reopenings. In
order to reopen, the trade group said in a recent statement, governments
"need to be confident that they are mitigating the risk of importing
Covid-19 and have confidence in a passenger's verified Covid-19 status."
It's impossible to quantify how much testing result and vaccine certificate fraud is already taking place.
Daniel Shkedi, who regularly combs the dark web as part of his duties
as senior product marketing manager for the e-commerce fraud prevention
company Forter, said that such fraud is noticeable online but not yet
prolific.
"I haven't seen marketplaces flooded with templates and stuff like
that, but when I drill down in the forum, folks are talking about it,"
said Shkedi, who provided the examples cited in this article. "It is
part of the conversation for sure. As we move on and travel starts to
pick up, we're going to see more of this."
The primary solution that has been proposed to fight such fraud is
the use of digital health passports, on which both testing results and
vaccination certificates can be securely uploaded from verified testing
centres or vaccination authorities and then linked digitally to a
traveller's identity.
Moving vaccination documentation away from easily manipulated paper records is another essential step, IATA said.
IATA isn't a disinterested party when it comes to pushing for health
passports. Its own Travel Pass, an app to confirm a passenger's
health-related status, is under development and will become available
for download on 1 March as it is deployed by Emirates and Etihad. The
airline trade group said its goal in developing the solution is to
reopen travel rather than to make money off it directly.
Other health passport developers also stress the peril caused by
fraudulent test and vaccination documents to the reopening of travel
markets.
"It poses a threat to airlines and international borders with the
potential for a passenger carrying a fake Covid test certificate or
vaccination card — who may be asymptomatic — to board an aircraft and
infect other passengers," the British tech company VSTE, developer of
the V-Health Passport, said in a recent press release.
Shkedi, though, cautioned that no solution will be foolproof.
"The challenge with cybersecurity and new verification systems is, eventually, they're all going to get breached," he said.
Source: Travel Weekly