SOS campaign launches to fight travel cybercrime
A new industry-wide campaign aims to combat the growing menace of cybercrime against travel companies.
Secure Our Systems, spearheaded by Prevention of Fraud in Travel (Profit), will be the first campaign of its kind in the trade.
It comes just ahead of the launch of an industry ‘blacklist’ of known travel fraudsters, part of new anti-fraud system the Fraud Intelligence Network (Fin), which is also being developed by Profit and will enable the reporting of travel fraud and vet job applicants.
Fin, which already has 760 confirmed fraudsters on its list, is designed to make employers aware of individuals’ criminal activity in the sector. Ex-agent Rita Hunter, for example, was jailed in April after defrauding tens of thousands of pounds from The Advantage Travel Partnership.
Profit chairman Barry Gooch said the latest campaign, backed by Travel Weekly and to run for seven weeks, would give the industry the tools to fight cyber criminals and protect themselves from attacks including ransomware, email interception, spyware, spoofing and cloned websites.