When news came out that the computers at a Marriott property were infiltrated by hackers, the response was a collective yawn and most people saying, “Again?”
According to the website DataBreaches, this was at least the seventh data security incident with Marriott’s systems since 2010.
Dealing with Marriott’s IT systems as a guest, there’s no secret that the company has problems.
- They can’t figure out how many days are in a week
- The systems choose (wrongly) which free night certificate to use
Was it any surprise to hear that the computers at a Marriott hotel were compromised?
Reading more about the incident, all it took was one hotel employee to allow hackers access to the system.
But while GNN had declined to answer any of my questions as to how they had gained access, Marriott informed DataBreaches that the breach occurred because social engineering successfully tricked one associate at a single Marriott hotel into giving the threat actor(s) access to that associate’s computer.
Marriott is downplaying the severity of the hack, saying it’s limited to the employee’s computer.
Marriott acknowledged that while most of the data acquired by GNN was what Marriott described as non-sensitive internal business files, they will be notifying approximately 300-400 individuals and any regulators, as required. They did not provide a full description as to what kinds of personal information were involved for the individuals being notified.
Not like Marriott has downplayed hacking incidents before.
One of the more notable cases emerged in November 2018. The company said hackers gained access to the reservation database of its Starwood subsidiary and obtained personal details of as many as 383 million guests (though some of those were believed to be duplicate records). The data included 5.3 million unencrypted passport numbers. The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office fined Marriott £18.4 million (around $21.9 million at today’s rates) over the incident.
As I said before, I think that eventually, I’m going to get free credit report monitoring for life, possibly all from Marriott 🙂
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