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It was revealed by hotel chain on Tuesday that a security breach affected more than 5.2 million hotel guests who used the corporation’s loyalty app.
As per a breach notice posted on its website, Marriot learned of the security breach at the end of February, when it exposed that a cybercriminal had used the login credentials of two employees from one of its franchise properties to access customer information from the app’s backend systems.
The hotel says the hack occurred in the middle of January but did not reveal extra details about how it materialized.
Marriott says the exposed information includes name, mailing address, email address, phone number, loyalty account number and point balance, company name, gender, birth day and month, information on the customer’s preferences, and more. Nevertheless, not all of this information was present for every impacted guest.
People affected are being informed and Marriott is offering them identity protection services free for one year. Impacted guests are being served through a dedicated website designed for this purpose.
“Marriott carries insurance, including cyber insurance, commensurate with its size and the nature of its operations, and the company is working with its insurers to assess coverage. The company does not currently believe that its total costs related to this incident will be significant,” Marriott stated.
In November 2018, the hotel chain divulged that a massive data breach had affected it, impacting roughly 500 million people who had stayed at Starwood hotel properties. The hackers had access to the Starwood network for many years before their existence was spotted.
Marriot later said the event, which some people have ascribed to attackers working for the Chinese government, only affected 383 million guests, but it’s still one of the major data breaches ever occurred.
