Booking.com Hacked! Is Your Information Safe? How NOT To Get Scammed!

booking.com was hacked we'll go over who is affected what you can do to protect yourself so you don't get scammed some real world examples and what are your options first who is affected anyone who has a current reservation with booking.com is affected but that doesn't mean you've been scammed nor does it mean you need to worry it means you need to be prepared and Vigilant according to the assah shim the headquarters of booking.com in the Netherlands conceded the damage is occurring on a global scale but according to the guardian booking.com has strenuously denied its system has been hacked and has instead blamed the messages on breaches in the email systems of its partner hotels sounds suspicious to me because if this were true why are these messages coming directly from booking.com the Asahi shinbun further States as of November 3rd at least 68 hotels in Japan reported they had been targeted the stolen information mainly concerned foreign visitors today online Singapore wrote since September at least 30 victims have fallen prey to a hotel booking scam and have lost at least 41,000 Singaporean dollars in all and as far back as February ARS teeka wrote an article detailing the exact same issue happening to customers in Europe this issue has been going on for a while and is now spread out through the world and it seems more incidents are happening now and nobody knows how these hackers gained access to booking.com messaging system but they are clearly sending fraudulent emails through booking.com so these emails look legit also within their mobile app they're sending messages and also on the website on the messaging tab those three areas are all affected so whenever you are looking at messages from booking.com you need to be careful this type of scam is known as fishing but what is a fishing scam think of the word fishing as if you're going fishing you use a lure a fake worm to catch a fish when the fish comes by and sees your enticing lure it bites so you catch the fish by tricking it with a fake worm here's how the booking.com scam works the customer who already made a future reservation on booking.com will receive an email this email will sound urgent telling the customer that they need to make a full payment within a short amount of time otherwise their booking will be cancelled and they provided a link to go make that payment how do I protect myself now before I go any further you need to know that I am not a security expert I am just providing you the information that I know so I highly recommend you do your own research as well now let's go over some fishing scam warning signs first you weren't expecting the email in the first place it's unexpected second check the email for misspellings or if the wording just sounds off and maybe it sounds unprofessional third check the from email so who is the email from it should always be coming from a Booking.com address so it would be something like info@ booking.com or the hotel name at booking.com so if a from email is something like booking.com atgma gmail.com that is definitely not coming from booking.com servers and you know it's fake but what's crazy is we now know that booking.com messaging system has been hacked so in this case the emails will be coming directly from booking.com but don't just trust the email yet if you do click on the given link make sure that the website it goes to is booking.com if it does not then this is most likely the fishing scam for instance if the link goes to a website called booking.com hi abc123.com then this is not booking.com website in this example you're actually visiting comen abc123.com here are some tips the very last section of that web address should always be booking.com and if there's anything before the booking.com what precedes the be of booking should always be a DOT if it is not a DOT then you are not going to booking.com so if you go to pay. booking.com then that is a legitimate booking.com web address the pay portion is known as a subdomain and because there's the dot you know that this is booking.com website but if you went to one booking.com that is not booking.com because again right before the B is a one not a dot it should always be a DOT if there's anything preceding the B of booking.com let's go over some real examples so you can spot these scams here is the example that was sent to cyber security blogger Graham clly from his blog it says hello dear Graham clly we regret to inform you that your booking may be cancelled as your card has not been automatically verified you will need to recheck the card funds are only temporarily reserved and will be fully refunded within 10 minutes important the card must have the amount of the reservation for verification check that there are no restrictions on online transactions on the card this must be done within 12 hours or the reservation will will be automatically cancelled we recommend that you use a Master Card in order to confirm please follow the link below to confirm your reservation https book what booking.com copy the link if you cannot click on it regards copyright booking 2023 team did you notice any warning signs in that email here's a couple that I noticed right away the first one is the language seems a bit off but again it could be written by someone in a foreign language for instance if you're going to Japan clearly English is a second language so we can't base anything off of that for this example now if you read further down the one thing that really stuck to me was the web address the link that you're going to click on is wrong if you look at the spelling it says book l n there's not even I in here and then on top of that if you look at the full web address it has a hyphen ID 33411 to.com this is clearly not booking.com website and this is most likely saying yes I'm a scam so if you came across an email email like this do not click on anything call booking.com immediately or the hotel and when you get the phone number make sure it is a legitimate phone number what I mean is go directly to booking.com and find the contact information for either booking.com or the hotel that you're contacting if you can't find the hotel's contact information go directly to their website now what the last thing you want to do is get this information from the email or the messaging system because those have been hacked so if you call somebody from either the email or the messaging system from a hacked email you're going to call a scammers here's another example from the guardian Observer reader Julia Bar says she was forced to cancel her bank card after she followed the instructions in the email she seemingly received from the website the email containing the fraudulent payment request had been sent from a standard booking.com email address a legitimate one it had a link to her reservation and came complete with all her stay details she says the fact fact that a notification of the message appeared in the app on her phone made her think it was genuine I think all of us would agree with that dear Julia barage unfortunately your booking might be cancelled due to an error during verification of your payment method usually in this case booking asks to verify your payment method and confirm your identity as a holder you can verify your payment method through a personal link please enter your payment details and wait for verification booking will charge your payment method with your reservation amount and in a minute we'll credit it back this is your payment method verification payment method verification is not a payment or deposit you pay directly when you arrive at the hotel if you want to save your reservation you must do it within 4 hours otherwise the reservation will be automatically cancelled okay so what did we notice here again first thing that's really obvious is the website address is wrong you can see it is booking.co not even a do but overall this message is pretty convincing and again we need to really scrutinize these but do know that none of these warning signs that we discussed are foolproof they are just a guide but I think it will give you a good sense of what to look out for and always be wary of any email asking for credit card information not just from booking.com but from anyone if you think you've received a fishing scam email stop what you're doing don't do anything except call booking.com directly or the hotel and again make sure you get that number from official sources not the email or messaging app and if you think you are a victim of a fishing scam contact your credit card immediately if you have not made any reservation through booking.com then I suggest you do not you might also want to avoid all their travel Partners this includes Price Line Agoda kayak rentalcars.com and open table so what else can I do to protect myself from online scams unfortunately there is no easy way to protect yourself from fishing scams but you can do a few things overall to protect yourself online first use Brave browser it blocks trackers ads and uses a shield that can automatically detect and block malicious website this is the browser that my family uses and will help keep your information from being leaked two use a VPN while a VPN does not protect you from fishing scams it helps you stay anonymous online and encrypts your data while you're on the internet we highly recommend and use surf shark especially if you're traveling for most most people this is the most important time to be using a VPN since you'll be connecting to public Wi-Fi which might have hackers waiting to steal your information and as a bonus you can watch geo-restricted content such as Netflix and other networks using surf shark links will be in the description what about hotels which ones are safe to use we like expedia.com we easily booked a bunch of places through the portal for our upcoming spring trip to Tokyo and mount fui and have not had any issues so far but no matter where we book our accommodations we all need to be vigilant because any website can be compromised in fact according to RS Technica in 2020 researchers from a company called website Planet reported finding a stash of data collected over the previous 7 years for more than 100,000 people who used booking.com and at least seven other online reservation services including Agoda amadas Expedia hotels.com Hotel Beds Omni bees and saber it goes on to say while this leak affected customers of multiple reservation services web searches show these type of data leaks continue to disproportionately affect users of booking.com over its competitors to some up we cannot blindly trust any emails coming from booking.com and within their mobile app if you receive an email or message through their app that sounds urgent asking for credit card information or any other type of sensitive information do not give it to them instead contact your booking accommodation directly to make sure it is not a fishing scam and again make sure you get the phone number from the official source and since this is a global issue we will not be using booking.com until they clean up this mess and have tightened their security it's just not worth the potential consequences finally please share with the community your experiences or if you have any good security tips and let's all stay safe next if you're going to be visiting Japan make sure you watch this video since you're going to need a SIM card it goes over the three best options for eims in Japan we are a long-term traveling family we have a ton of videos that will help you with your trip to Japan and throughout Southeast Asian so please subscribe thanks for watching

Channel: Kensho Quest

Views: 7,253

Keywords: booking.com scam, booking.com hacked, booking.com phishing scam, booking.com security breach, tips for avoiding phishing scams, hotels in japan, hotel phishing scam, stay safe online, online security, family travel, traveling with kids, family travel vlog, family travel tips, family travel inspiration, travel vlog, traveling family, travel hacks, hotel booking scams, booking hotels in japan, online safety

Id: 4cpKUBpLUT8

Length: 11min 34sec (694 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 17 2023