"Travel-Related Cybercrime Takes Off as Industry Rebounds"

Security researchers at Intel 471 are warning that the post-COVID upsurge in travel has painted a bullseye on the travel industry and has spurred related cybercrimes.  The researchers have seen an uptick in adversaries targeting the theft of airline mileage reward points, website credentials for travel websites, and travel-related database breaches.  Since January, the researchers detected multiple hacks used by cybercriminals to trade the credentials linked to travel websites.  The researchers noted that the threat actors were specifically interested in “mileage rewards accounts with at least 100,000 miles.”  Access to these accounts allowed actors to leverage the rewards to book travel reservations for themselves and other customers.  The accounts and their respective rewards points could also be resold to other actors looking to conduct similar types of travel fraud activity.  The researchers have also observed an uptick in cybercriminals targeting travel-related databases, which are ripe with employee and traveler personal identifiable information (PII) that threat actors can sell for money.  The researchers observed travel-related hackers leveraging a database of “40,000 people employed in Illinois”.  The stolen database included the PII of employees.  In one instance, Intel 471 researchers observed cybercriminals use PII to create illicit travel documents used for border crossings.  The researchers suggest that customers stay vigilant while making arrangements and that they should book flights from a trusted source, handle payment cautiously, and refrain from getting phished in any dubious vacation-related offers.

Threatpost reports: "Travel-Related Cybercrime Takes Off as Industry Rebounds"