United, American airlines account fraud highlights hacker focus on travel industry

More than 20 travel-related websites have experienced data breaches in the past two months, according to a security expert who tracks the trade in stolen data.

Data from those websites is being sold on underground forums by cybercriminals, said Alex Holden, CTO of Hold Security, a company that specializes in monitoring the illegal trade and alerting companies if their data is found.

United Airlines said on Sunday three dozen of its MileagePlus loyalty card accounts were compromised as part of an attack that reused login credentials obtained from a third party.

On Monday, the Associated Press reported that 10,000 customer accounts at American Airlines were compromised. Two of those accounts were used to book free travel or an upgrade, the AP reported, quoting an airline spokeswoman.

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