Jun 08, Kathmandu- The system of various travel agencies of Nepal has been hacked and tickets from third countries to other countries have been cut. In the last 15 days alone, three companies have filed a complaint saying that their system was hacked and tickets worth ten lakhs were deducted.

Spokesman of the Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police and Superintendent of Police Pashupati Kumar Rai has said that a complaint has been received about tickets worth more than 50 lakhs from a single company.

Earlier, he said, although such minor incidents were registered, this time tickets of large amounts were collected. He said that correspondence has been sent on this matter in order to reduce the damage for awareness.

He said that it is impossible to say whether this attack was from inside the country or from outside. He said that in this financial year, there have been seven complaints that the system was hacked and tickets were deducted in this way.

"There have been three complaints in the last 15 days. In the earlier complaints, the damage was normal, now the damage is in lakhs. It is a big incident," he said.

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The incident happened after a hacker somehow gained access to the system software used by travel agencies to book tickets.

AITA is an international organization of travel agencies from different countries. Its members use the same type of software. The hacker who gained access to the same software has targeted the travel agencies of Nepal.

An employee of a travel agency, who had more than 30 tickets taken from him, said that the hackers took emergency and night time tickets. A travel agency in Nepal has said that the ticket of a passenger from the West African country of Senegal to Mexico has been canceled.

"Tickets have been issued at 2 o'clock in the night. The person who cut the tickets has left. The hacker who issued the tickets by accessing our system has already collected the money, "An employee of the agency said, "We are working together with all parties to resolve the attack".

The agency says that all these tickets were cut on Saturday and they found out when they ran the system on Sunday.

It seems that hackers may have gained access to the same foreign system used by different countries by finding weaknesses in it.

It sends a weekly bill to the travel agencies under the IATA and requests payment. However, it has been revealed that travel agencies have become targets of fraudulent hackers after receiving bills for tickets that they did not buy.