Seat spinning is a cyberattack where bots place airline tickets in carts without purchasing them, holding the inventory hostage. This leads to financial losses for airlines and prevents legitimate buyers from accessing available seats.
Understanding Seat Spinning.
Seat spinning is a devious tactic employed by cyber attackers who manipulate airline booking systems. By using bots, attackers infiltrate an airline’s booking APIs and applications via compromised logins or fake accounts. The objective? To “buy” tickets by placing them in a cart without completing the purchase. This keeps the inventory hostage, allowing attackers to resell these seats through third-party services at inflated prices.
This tactic doesn’t just stop at holding inventory. If the attackers can’t resell the tickets, they release them too late for legitimate buyers to make a purchase, resulting in flights taking off with empty seats. The immediate consequence is clear—financial loss for the airline.
How Seat Spinning happens.
The mechanics behind seat spinning capitalize on API and web application bot management vulnerabilities within airline booking platforms. Attackers deploy sophisticated bots that mimic human behavior, bypassing security protocols designed to protect against automated threats.
Once inside the system, these bots use fake or compromised accounts to secure seats. They exploit the time window between selecting a seat and completing a transaction, effectively blocking genuine customers from making bookings. The bots either hold the seats until they can be resold or release them at the last minute, ensuring minimal recovery time for the airline.
Examples of Seat Spinning.
Several airlines have already fallen victim to seat spinning, enduring significant financial disruptions. For instance, a well-known international carrier reported that thousands of its seats were blocked during peak holiday seasons, resulting in a noticeable dip in revenue as empty seats took to the skies.
Similarly, a regional airline experienced a surge in last-minute cancellations during a promotional fare period. On further investigation, it was revealed that these cancellations were a direct result of unauthorized ticket holds orchestrated through advanced bot networks.
These cases highlight the growing sophistication of such attacks and underscore the urgency for airlines to enhance their security measures against this evolving threat.
The impact of seat spinning on airlines.
The repercussions of seat spinning extend beyond mere financial loss. Airlines face multiple challenges, from damaged reputations to strained customer relationships. Here’s how:
- Revenue Loss: With seats held hostage, flights may depart with empty spots, leading to a direct hit on revenue. Empty seats mean lost ticket sales and, ultimately, financial strains on operations.
- Customer Frustration: Genuine customers who find it difficult to book desired flights may turn to other airlines, eroding customer loyalty. The perceived unavailability of seats, even when flights aren’t full, can create dissatisfaction.
- Operational Disruptions: Constant monitoring and dealing with unfulfilled bookings strain resources and divert focus from core activities. Staff are required to manage the fallout, which can include addressing customer complaints and recalibrating inventory.
Reputational Damage: Frequent occurrences of unavailable seats can tarnish an airline’s image, affecting its standing in the market. Negative reviews and feedback can spread quickly, impacting customer acquisition and retention.
Preventing Seat Spinning.
To guard against seat spinning, airlines must adopt a proactive and multifaceted approach. Here’s how they can protect their systems:
- Advanced Bot Detection: Implementing sophisticated algorithms to detect and neutralize bots before they infiltrate systems is paramount. Tools that analyze user behavior in real-time can differentiate between genuine users and automated threats.
- Stronger Authentication Processes: Enhancing login protocols with multi-factor authentication can help safeguard against fake or compromised accounts. Regular updates to authentication methods can keep attackers at bay.
- Inventory Management Controls: Developing systems that monitor and flag suspicious booking patterns allows airlines to intervene promptly. Automated alerts for unusual activity can trigger immediate investigations.
- Collaborative Security Measures: Working with industry peers to share insights and develop standardized defenses can fortify the entire sector. Collaborative efforts can lead to more robust solutions and quicker responses to emerging threats.
- Regular System Audits: Conducting frequent audits of booking and security systems helps identify and rectify vulnerabilities. Regular testing ensures that protective measures remain effective against evolving tactics.
Sophisticated threats require sophisticated protection.
Seat spinning represents a sophisticated threat that requires equally sophisticated defenses. By understanding the nuances of this tactic, airlines can implement comprehensive strategies to safeguard their operations and maintain their competitive edge. In an era where digital threats continue to evolve, staying informed and proactive is the key to navigating the skies smoothly.
How Vercara can help.
Vercara’s UltraAPI product suite is a set of solutions purpose-built to protect APIs against seat spinning and other attacks against APIs. It consists of three components:
UltraAPI Comply is a solution that sits in front of API servers to detect API schemas, data types, and security controls using machine learning to identify security and compliance vulnerabilities and their associated risks.
UltraAPI Bot Manager is an inline solution that sits in front of APIs to detect and block attacks against APIs and automated, unwanted bots that try to perform seat spinning.
UltraAPI Discover scans APIs from the perspective of an attacker across the Internet to identify API endpoints, schema definitions, and security controls that protect them.
For more information or to ask us questions, please contact us.
