Harrisburg, PA. (Whtm) – If you have a flight with Delta Air Lines, you may want to make sure you can access your frequent Flier account before heading to the airport.
The airline locked the access to some common customer accounts because of the Cybersecurity concerns, which he learned earlier during the week and did not immediately notify these customers on the basis of similar information provided by two different reservation agents at different times on Saturday, for a NEXStar WHTM reporter.
The potential security breach happened last week based on the information provided. The reporter found the problem on Saturday while trying to enter the airline system to register for a flight scheduled for Sunday. Entrance failed as attempted to reset the password.
This previously undeclared problem happened, while Delta was also working to recover from a strong storm at its Atlanta center, which led the airline to cancel nearly 1,000 flights on Friday and Saturday.
The reporter called the Airline Reservation Center, where an agent immediately recognized the problem and said that a known question about fears about a potential security breach influenced a large number of customers earlier during the week and the accounts of these clients were locked. The agent said the client, as well as other affected, must upload a photo of a valid government identifier (as a driver’s license) to check his identity.
The agent helped the reporter move to a form on the airline website through which the photo can be uploaded. She said that due to the large number of clients affected, the demands take time to deal; The reporter may call later for more manual help on the phone if the problem is not discussed on time.
“Delta Skymiles accounts are sure,” a spokesman said in a statement, answering questions about the matter. Skymiles is the honest program of the airline. “As we do from time to time, of an abundance of caution, we reset account identification data and ask customers to check them with us to keep the security of the bills. We apologize for the inconvenience that may cause.”
Later during the day, a different agent, further assisting the reporter, also immediately acknowledged the problem and said that about 68,000 customers were affected. The speaker declined to comment further.
68,000 customers would represent less than 1% of approximately 130 million Delta Skymiles members, and it was not clear whether any accounts were actually violated, as opposed to whether the hackers had tried to violate the airline systems.
But two security experts said that the processing of the airline of the issue – locking client accounts, but does not immediately inform the affected customers that they need to try to reset their account identification data to regain access – is unusual.
“This is the first time I heard about a company that does something like that without notifying customers,” said Jonathan Weisman, a chief teacher at the Rochester Cybersecurity Division (New York), said on a Saturday night. “It makes no sense that they would lock the bills and do not tell the customers that the bills were locked.”
Weissman said companies often require customers to reset their passwords, even after successful blocking of hackers have access to an account, but they usually notify customers as soon as this happens so that customers can handle the problem and their convenience, not when they need to access the website or the company.
“The locking of the bills is a good, safe measure,” Weissman told Delta’s original step. “But not to report this fact to the affected customers can cause mass confusion and problems with people who get on flights. [Delta]Not in response to customer questions. “
Weissman said that it was possible that the airline would not know the extent of the problem, but if he knew enough to lock accounts, she would have to notify customers of this action and their need to set new passwords at the same time.
Another cybersecurity expert, also talking on a Saturday night, agreed.
“They have to come clean and do their best job to notify all those affected,” says Scott Shober, CEO of a cybersecurity company based in New Jersey, called BVS and author of several cybersecurity books. “At a minimum, they could warn you so you can take action and then provide more information while learning it.”
Less than half an hour after the first agent helped the reporter to navigate the process of uploading the photo of his driver’s license, he received this message:
(Whtm)
But resetting the password does not work. The reporter called and talked to another agent who was also familiar with the problem and was able to help successfully reset the password, which led to a successful entry into the account.
Delta is generally well appreciated among US airlines, sometimes ranked higher than all others in customer surveys and analyzes of indicators such as airline accuracy.
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