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Tate Holcombe, a photographer in Arlington, Va., Said that he was generally "religious enough to change passwords and multiple checks," especially for accounts linked to payment data. With the rewards programs, he was much more lax.
"Of course, this is the only place where I got hacked," he said.
On March 23, Mr. Holcombe woke up at his home with a notification from his Domino Loyalty Account at 3:00 am: his pizza was ready for pickup in Santa Clarita, California.
Someone hacked his profile and used a coupon for a free pizza, he said. Personal information, such as his phone number and address, was crushed by gibberish. When he complained, the company replaced his coupon.
Jenny Fouracre, a spokeswoman for Domino, said the channel had "important controls over the protection of loyalty accounts." Although recycling a password on multiple accounts makes many customers vulnerable, she said: "The information we have secured has never been compromised."
After repeated attacks, credit card companies and banks "struggled" and became more difficult to break through, said Marti Beller, president of Kobie Marketing, which designs rewards systems. She added that loyalty programs should do the same because "they have real currencies with real values".
Some brands reinforce their defenses with stricter connection requirements such as two-factor authentication and facial recognition. According to McDonald's, its application replaced credit card information with a series of randomly generated numbers that protect accounts against data theft, but not against fraudulent purchases.
Many companies are also recruiting digital security companies such as Sift.
Approximately 34,000 websites and applications use the services of the company. Sift has access to a wealth of data that customers collect through loyalty programs and can track each customer's behavior across multiple accounts by analyzing them for potential fraud.
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