Many of the users who make bookings using the Airbnb app made complaints about their accounts been accessed without authorization. Some claim their accounts were charged and used to make bookings and others said bookings that they had lined up were canceled. There were other reports of users having their accounts locked, which made them unable to change their password and some even had their entire account deleted. Quite a few of the users who were affected took to Twitter to complain about the issue. One user stated, “Warning! Last night my @Airbnb account was HACKED and booking of £487 was made using my card details. I am going to Venice in two weeks. Now I have nowhere to stay and still have no confirmation I will get my money back, despite two phone calls with them today @AirbnbHelp.” While no response was given at that time, another user said, “My @airbnb_uk account was hacked last night. all my reservations for in 2 weeks’ time canceled. someone tried to book several holidays in my name + then it looks like they panicked and deleted my account. what the f*** am i meant to do???? @Airbnb.” It seems as if it is not all bad, however. One user who had been extorted for nearly $20,000 USD was able to retrieve their funds within a day of his phone call to Airbnb. It is unclear at this time who was behind the attack, but it does not appear as if they will slow down until a clear remediation process is developed by Airbnb.
Analyst Notes
Users should be on the lookout for any suspicious bookings or cancellations, and if they do find any, they should be reported to Airbnb immediately. If the password a user had been using on Airbnb was being used on any other platform it should also be changed immediately.
