Bengaluru Man ‘Hacks’ IndiGo Website To Find His Lost Luggage; Know What Happens Next
New Delhi: We all know that not being able to find your luggage at the conveyer belt or someone mistakenly picking up your bag is one of the most underrated problems that exit. And imagine that the airline not being able to help you out of the situation. Similar is the story with a software engineer based in Bengaluru, Nadan Kumar, who was travelling from Patna to Bangalore on an IndiGo flight, had his luggage mistakenly picked up by a co-passenger and the incident prompted Kumar to put his skills to best use to find his lost luggage by hacking into the airline’s website.
Kumar took to Twitter and shared the story of how he retrieved his luggage while also pointing out the flaws in the security of IndiGo airline’s website. Kumar wrote, “So, I travelled from PAT – BLR from indigo(sic) 6E-185 yesterday. And my bag got exchanged with another passenger. Honest mistake from both our ends. As the bags were exactly the same with some minor differences.”
Soo I traveled from PAT – BLR from indigo 6E-185 yesterday. And my bag got exchanged with another passenger.
Honest mistake from both our end. As the bags exactly same with some minor differences. 2/n
— Nandan kumar (@_sirius93_) March 28, 2022
He further specified that he called the customer service number and followed all necessary protocols to locate his lost luggage. He wrote, “Long story short I couldn’t get any resolution on the issue. And neither your customer care team was ready to provide me with the contact details of the person, citing privacy and data protection.”
He added that he did not receive any call from the customer service agent even the next day. After numerous failed attempts trying to locate the co-passenger, Nandar Kumar decided to take the case on his own hands.
After multiple calls and navigating through @IndiGo6E IVR and of course a lot of wait I was able to connect to one of your customer care agents and they tried to connect me with the co-passenger. But all in vain. 4/n
— Nandan kumar (@_sirius93_) March 28, 2022
Hacker mode ON.
“After numerous failed attempts trying to locate the co-passenger, Nandar Kumar decided to take the case on his own hands. After all the failed attempts, my dev instinct kicked in and I pressed the F12 button on my computer keyboard and opened the developer console on the @IndiGo6E website and started the whole check-in flow with network log record on (sic),” he wrote.
So now, after all the failed attempts, my dev instinct kicked in and I pressed the F12 button on my computer keyboard and opened the developer console on the @IndiGo6E website and started the whole checkin flow with network log record on.
9/n— Nandan kumar (@_sirius93_) March 28, 2022
For all the non-techie readers, when you press F12, it opens a set of developer tools. It helps engineers look at requests and responses sent and received to and from a website server. By this time, Kumar successfully located the co-passenger and exchanged his bag.
Kumar had a few suggestions for IndiGo to make, including improving their customer service.
Dear,@IndiGo6E take note
1. Fix your IVR and make it more user friendly
2. Make your customer service more proactive than reactive
3. Your website leaks sensitive data get it fixed.— Nandan kumar (@_sirius93_) March 28, 2022
IndiGo took notice of Nadan’s story and responded with an apology for the inconvenience and assured that the website has no security lapses.
— IndiGo (@IndiGo6E) March 29, 2022