A functional EU Digital COVID Certificate for Adolf Hitler has been circulating online. Although the certificate of the Nazi Germany Leader has since been invalidated, the incident raises concerns about the security of the region's vaccine certification system.
The vaccine passport started doing rounds online on Tuesday. After it was scanned using several verification apps, it was discovered to be working. It returned the name Adolf Hitler, with his birth date being January 1, 1900.
Similar certificates were also circulating in tech forums, some with Hitler's name capitalized and with different birthdates.
However, all of those vaccine passports would have successfully been used to gain access to venues asking for proof of vaccination.
It remains a mystery where the keys required to generate Hitler's vaccine passports came from. Italian outlet IL Post, which was among the first to report on the story, claims the passport was generated with a key from France, but acknowledged that information could also be a mislead.
The vaccine passport was invalidated on Wednesday afternoon.
Some users on tech forums and the dark web are claiming to be selling working vaccine certificates. Another possible explanation is that a healthcare worker with access to a private key generated the Adolf Hitler vaccine passport.
The possibility of leaked private keys is concerning considering one key can be used to generate multiple vaccine passports. So, if a key is revoked because it leaked, it would invalidate all vaccine passports it was used to generate, whether they are fake or real.
If hundreds or thousands of people are forced to re-apply, the public confidence in the certification system would be undermined further.
Hitler is not the only public figure to get a fake vaccine passport. A few weeks ago, a teenager was arrested in France for attempting to use a fake Emmanuel Macron vaccine passport.
