The American hotel group Marriott International has acknowledged that it has suffered a computer attack in the Starwood reservation database that has affected some 500 million customers
The hackers have stolen extensive personal information from at least 327 million of those guests and some also the number of the payment card.
Marriott reported Friday in an extensive statement that on September 8, 2018, it received an alert on its internal security system for an attempt to access the Starwood reservations database in the United States.
Following this attack, the company hired security experts who discovered that unauthorized access to the Starwood network had been recorded since 2014.
After the investigation, on November 19 it could be verified that information had been copied and encrypted from the Starwood reservation database.
Although the duplicate information has not yet been identified in the database, Marriott estimates that it contains information on up to approximately 500 million guests who made a reservation at a Starwood location.
Some 327 million of those customers have seen their personal data removed such as name, mailing address, phone number, email address, passport number, Starwood Preferred Guest account, date of birth, sex, arrival and departure information, date of reservation and communication preferences.
Of some clients - Marriott does not detail how many -, information has also been obtained of their payment card numbers and their expiration dates, although it ensures that these were registered by means of advanced encryption.
Despite this, the company can not guarantee the security of these cards. "There are two ways to decipher the numbers on the payment cards and, at this time, Marriott has not been able to rule out the possibility that it could have been achieved in one of two ways," he said.
For the rest of the clients, the information obtained by the hackers has been the name and, in some cases, the postal address, the email address or other information.
Marriott has reported this incident to the police while continuing the investigation. The company has already begun to notify the regulatory authorities of the attack suffered.
Marriott President and CEO Arne Soren has regretted what happened and is committed to helping affected customers and "learning from what happened."
To serve customers, he has created an exclusive website (info.starwoodhotels.com) and a call center 24 hours a day to answer any questions about this incident. It will also contact all customers of the Starwood reservation database.
Date update on 2018-12-02. Date published on 2018-12-02. Category: hackers Author: Oscar olg Fuente: hosteltur