Someone shared me this video awhile ago, which is of a CNN reporter meeting with a Social Engineering hacker at a hacker’s convention in Las Vegas. In a matter of 30 seconds, she called up a hotel (which chain it was was not mentioned) and, pretending to be him, transferred 90,000 hotel points to herself.
Not to be outdone, she then called up an airline and changed his outgoing flight to a middle seat in the back of the airplane.
Watch the whole video here
How to keep your points safe
The point of the video was that many places online have 2 factor authentication and other ways to keep your points secure online, but on the phone there is not as much security. Generally I have found that most companies (including hotels and airlines) are pretty good at responding to fraudulent activity, though if they were able to playback a call of “me” calling in to make the transfer, I don’t know what they’d say?!?!
What did you think of this video? How do you keep your accounts safe? Leave your thoughts in the comments
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How about IHG with their four digit passcode?
Yeah – that certainly seems like a weak link
Which hotel rewards program allows transferring 90k points to a friend? And which reward program shows the correct number of points in the app seconds after you used some via phone? I want in!
Thanks for showing this! Was way too crazy easy. I have lost points before thru Choice and they said there was nothing they could do. My son almost lost his through Hilton but was caught via Award Wallet quickly and they immediately refunded. He really felt it was through a Hilton employee who commented on his high total when he checked in. I always wonder what employees see on your reservation.
My sound was not working I have problems with it since I am not very good with commuters and don’t know how to use a smart phone
She didn’t mention what app can change her voice into a Male voice and also show a different number on the caller ID??
I didn’t catch the name of it either but I assume those are standard hacker tools – I’m sure you could do a search and find any number of tools that do those things