Hotel Giant Falls Victim to Data Fraud in a Row

A renowned name in the international hotel industry the Marriott has fallen prey to a data breach for the second time in quick succession during the last two years.

The latest has left the big name in the hospitality industry cheated on 5.2 million of its guests, compromising an array of their personal information, including names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, loyalty account numbers and points balances, gender, partial birth dates, employer details, affiliated loyalty programs and stay preferences.

As per the hotel administration, the latest incident of data theft started at a franchise outlet of the brand which operated under the same name. There the login identities of two employees were used to gain access to the client's database. After the data breach was discovered the exploited login credentials were disabled and investigation started.

This time the fraudulent activity continued from the middle of January 2020 till the end of February. Hence it gave a long time to the cyber criminals to make good of the stolen data. Only recently the hotel group discovered the theft and informed the customers about it.

The group is offering a free personal monitoring service for a year, although not for all countries. It has disabled the current passwords to its benefit programs and its users will have to enable two-factor authentication once they change their passwords.

Marriot also shared the official email address (marriott@email‑marriott.com) that will be used for contacting guests about the situation.

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Read on for more stories on cyber security in retail and hotel chains: https://www.isoeh.com/exclusive-blog-details-wawa-stores-fall-prey-to-payment-card-hacking.html!