Fake vaccination cards available on the dark web have emerged, warn experts

FOX 2 - It's a moment of celebration for the people getting it as thousands of people a day are on social media showing off their vaccination cards. 

They're getting as much play as I voted stickers did in November. But there's something you need to keep in mind.

"On the dark web we saw vaccines for sale, then we saw vaccination cards for sale," said Mark Ostrowzski. "Now we are seeing Covid testing documentation for sale. 

"We know this is being used and sold, so we want to make sure where this is going on so think twice about posting any information about your vaccine status."

Ostrowzski is with Check Point Software Technologies and says actual vaccination cards posted on social media are being ripped off, redone, and being sold online.

"What we see on the dark web is these forged documents being sold," he said. "Typically it's a transfer of bitcoin or other crypto-currency is how they can monetize these documents."

Who are the customers? People who don't want to get the vaccine, but want to make sure they are ready to get back to life in the new normal.

"It's consumers, or people like you and I perhaps, who have not had their vaccinations yet and they're looking for documents to board a plane or gain entry to an event," he said. "So it's more on the consumer side looking for forged documents, rather than scammers looking to take hold of documents themselves."

The people selling these cards aren't looking for a trail for identity theft necessarily.  They're looking to make cash off Covid cards.  Replace the name, and you have a lot of pertinent information - the format of the card, the vaccination type, the location, or status. These can then be used anywhere where the Covid passport is needed. 

For the people selling these, it's big money just based on sheer volume.

"So in this scenario, you're talking about hundreds of millions of people who are going through the vaccination process across the US, so it's a big pool for them to try to take advantage of, and try to get monetary gain off something like this," Ostrowzski said.