Watch a hacker take 90,000 hotel points from a CNN reporter in 30 seconds

Someone shared me this video awhile ago, which is of a CNN reporter meeting with a Social Engineering hacker at a hacker’s convention in Las Vegas. In a matter of 30 seconds, she called up a hotel (which chain it was was not mentioned) and, pretending to be him, transferred 90,000 hotel points to herself.

Not to be outdone, she then called up an airline and changed his outgoing flight to a middle seat in the back of the airplane.

Watch the whole video here

How to keep your points safe

The point of the video was that many places online have 2 factor authentication and other ways to keep your points secure online, but on the phone there is not as much security. Generally I have found that most companies (including hotels and airlines) are pretty good at responding to fraudulent activity, though if they were able to playback a call of “me” calling in to make the transfer, I don’t know what they’d say?!?!

What did you think of this video? How do you keep your accounts safe? Leave your thoughts in the comments