According to American Airlines and United Airlines, thousands of their customers had their rewards accounts accessed illegally. In some of the cases, trips or upgrades were booked without the customers’ knowledge. Both companies insist their systems were not breached, but thousands of usernames and passwords illegally obtained in other breaches were used to access rewards accounts.
Findings reveal that loyalty fraud is a growing problem among airlines and, with the burgeoning amount of illegally obtained logon credentials available to criminals, growth will only accelerate.
Officials from American said up to 10,000 Advantage accounts have been illegally accessed, although not all have had their balances affected.
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