Travel Scams on the Rise

“Many are looking at possible summer getaways to take.  So, you go online looking for a great travel deal and find yourself on a very credible travel website. That city you’d like to stay in only has very pricey hotels. But this website has the very same hotels at a massive discount. Sound too good to be true? According to Marnie Wilking, Chief Information Security Officer at Booking.com – it is. In a recent informal interview, Wilking points out the use of AI specifically in travel-related scams. Because of the nature of booking travel, including the providing of credit card and personal details, it’s a natural fit for scammers.”¹

With the rise of these travel scams during the height of summer travel, it’s important to be aware of which sites you are planning vacations on. Besides using the mobile app versions of legitimate travel sites, another way to be sure you are on the right site is to closely inspect the URL. Although scammers can basically clone these websites, they can’t clone the exact URL. But they can use URLs that look nearly identical to the ones for legitimate sites. Look for minor changes in a URL such as misspellings, extra characters, and words not associated with the legitimate site. Another more in-depth way to check if a site is legitimate is to use Google Safe Browsing. To use Google Safe Browsing, just copy and paste the suspicious link at https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search, and Google will show you the current status of the site, safe or unsafe.

_{¹https://blog.knowbe4.com/travelers-beware-booking.com-warns-of-increases-in-ai-enabled-travel-scams}