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Cyberpunks siphon off $1.4 Billion airline revenue
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 18 March 2009, 18:58 IST
Bangalore: The hackers have turned to the sky for their next prey, with airlines worldwide losing over $1.4 billion to online fraudsters in 2008. The business airlines lost 1.1 percent of their revenues to fraud and low-cost carriers lost 1.6 percent.
The findings are based on an Airline Online Fraud Survey commissioned by CyberSource in association with Airline Information and completed in January, 2009. The increasing online crimes made airlines the most compromised sector with 33 percent of the industry's revenues derived from eCommerce - that is three times the proportion of sales transacted online by non-travel companies. "These findings highlight the need for airlines to adopt a more automated, holistic approach to fraud management - from initial screening through booking review and disposition. Improving the accuracy of automated screening is the key," said Akif Khan, CyberSource, Head of client and technical services.
According to the survey, the ways airlines manage fraud vary significantly by airline category. In 2008, business-class airlines typically embraced profit protection measures, whereas low-cost carriers tended to focus on revenue capture. On average, business airlines used the most fraud detection tools (6.5 tools per business-class airline), had the highest rate of manual review (47 percent), and rejected more bookings due to suspicion of fraud (3.6 percent). Conversely, low-cost carriers used the least number of automated screening tools (4.9 tools per low-cost carrier), were less likely to manually review bookings (13 percent), and rejected fewer bookings due to suspicion of fraud (2 percent).
