EU’s 'Green Pass' hacked? Adolf Hitler’s Covid certificate doing rounds online: Report
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Several users found a QR code online on Tuesday, and when they tried to scan with verifications apps, they found that it was a digital Covid certificate with the name ‘Adolf Hitler’ written on it, along with the date of birth stating January 1,1900
European Union’s (EU) digital Covid certificates bearing Adolf Hitler’s name and date of birth has been doing the rounds online, raising questions over the safety and efficacy of the vaccine passport system.
Several users found a QR code online on Tuesday, and when they tried to scan with verifications apps, they found that it was a digital Covid certificate with the name ‘Adolf Hitler’ written on it, along with the date of birth stating January 1,1900, according to a report by Russia Today.
It was reported that several versions of the code were shared on tech forums, some with the name capitalised, while others with a different birthday.
According to Italian news agency ANSA, which has quoted sources, some of the keys used to generate the European Green Pass were stolen and distributed on programming networks to create false COVID-19 health certificates.
However, it couldn’t be verified whether the stolen keys used to generate fake Covid passes were forged to validate Hitler’s European Green Pass.
Following the revelations, a series of meetings were held at the EU level on Wednesday to examine the situation, ANSA reported.
The officials decided to cancel all the passes created with those keys, and said the theft of the generation keys did not take place in Italy.
According to reports, the private key used to verify Hitler’s pass was revoked as of Wednesday, but a Polish user on one tech forum still claimed to be selling working certificates, as did some posters on the so-called ‘dark web.’
This is not the first time that fake Covid vaccine certificates have proliferated the markets in Europe. There have been reports of people in France splurging hundreds of euros for fake health passes in an online black market.
A black market for fraudulent health passes had sprung up on Snapchat —despite the risk of jail sentences.
Accounts on the social networking app that rarely last for more than a were found to openly advertise their counterfeit documents.
(With inputs from agencies)