Fraud in travel is on the up, according to a number of recently released reports from experts in the field.
If we put aside some cynicism that they would say that and look, for example, at the IntSights study into cyber threats in hospitality, which claims there have been 13 “notable data breaches” in the industry in the past three years.
It also points to PwC’s Hotels Outlook report 2018 to 2022 which says hospitality has the second-largest number of cybersecurity breaches after the retail sector.
A further reference point cited for IntSights is Trustwave Holdings which says hospitality was the third-most targeted industry in 2018 after retail and finance.
The view is also shared by senior travel industry figures who have experience of a cyber attack.
Sabre Hospitality was the victim of a security breach impacting its SynXis hotel reservation system in mid-2017.
Sabre Hospitality president Clinton Anderson said during at session at ITB earlier this month that people would be surprised at “the number of malevolent, ill-intended actions happening in big companies especially in hospitality where you have a lot of turn-over at that front desk.”
IntSights believes hotels are particularly vulnerable because of their “widely distributed and highly connected” nature which means threats can come at them from many directions.
It adds other factors which make them attractive to fraudsters such as the volume of financial transactions that hotels carry out, the sensitive and valuable personal data collected, use of loyalty programs and their national and international spread.
In the past year, IntSights also monitored mentions of large hotel companies on the dark web and in hacker channels to ascertain potential threats.
The company’s dark web “chatter’ breakdown reveals Hilton had a 31% share of mentions on hacker forums followed by Marriott at 28% and IHG at 19%.
Marriot recently revealed that its data security breach had cost the company $28 million.
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And, it’s not just hospitality businesses that are having to defend themselves against cyber attacks or other fraudulent activity.
It’s unsurprising that as the aviation industry grows and airlines look to adapt their distribution models, cyber attacks and other fraudulent activity also increases.
Air Europa says that as it went through its digital transformation, it needed to handle fraud more efficiently.
It recently adopted a Riskified-hosted system and says it has seen a 95% reduction in chargebacks from credit card providers and eliminated manual processes related to fraudulent activity.
According to a report from Forter, the airline industry saw a 29% decrease in fraud attacks in 2018, but the company attributes that the large data hacks involving passport details have not yet “been reused to commit air travel fraud.”