Airbnb introduces new security measures to help stop account takeovers

Airbnb is hoping to prevent accounts being illegally taken over by hackers and scammers with the new security measures it’s introducing into its app. One of them is multi-factor authentication. So whether you’re a gust or host, Airbnb will now require you to verify your login via a second account either through SMS or email. Airbnb is also introducing SMS alerts so you’ll see if there are changes made to your account with or without your knowledge.

According to the company, one of the most common security breaches on the service is when a scammer takes control of an account by obtaining the password. This, of course, poses a greater threat for Airbnb as this gives strangers access to private details about homes and the ability to rent this out to others. Airbnb says they are already using predictive models that are trained with machine learning techniques to flag uncharacteristic behavior. But that doesn’t seem to be enough. Hopefully, these new measures will help keep both hosts and guests safe.