Frequent flyer miles no longer safe as American and United airlines get hacked
Those who travel regularly count on the frequent flyer miles that almost all airlines offer. Customers use these to build up for free trips or upgrades to a better class seating section. But what happens when these miles get swiped away from you? American and United airlines are finding out.
Both flight providers have experienced theft of these miles, carried out by hackers that got hold of access from customer account information. The miles were used to book free trips and upgrades.
According to security firm Sophos, "The thieves were able to make mileage transactions on what United believes were fewer than 3 dozen accounts, out of a total of 95 million accounts". This information comes from spokesperson Luke Punzenberger.
Consumer Affairs reports "Frequent flyers take note: thieves managed to hack into and steal miles from customer-reward accounts connected to both United and American Airlines. The actual thefts took place sometime in late December, but only made headlines this week".
Customers for United have already been alerted to the problem by the company. American apparently lost a good deal more accounts than just "3 dozen" claimed by United -- 10,000 by all reporting. Accounts have been frozen while the company works with customers to set up new ones -- though it's starting with its high-end customers, those with more than 100,000 miles.
No credit card information was swiped, according to initial reports, and United has begun requiring customers to enter a MileagePlus account number, which security researchers at Sophos call a smart move. Hope is that this will at least make things more difficult for the perpetrators.
This was perhaps less a hack of the airlines than a theft from another source, though information is still coming in. Once a password has been taken then those responsible will begin trying it on other sites. This frequently generates results as people tend to reuse the same passwords in multiple locations because it makes life simpler. That's a bad idea and one we obviously don't recommend.
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