The hospitality industry was dealt another blow: according to Reuters, hotels managed by HEI Hotels & Resorts experienced a significant credit card data breach. The attack infiltrated the POI systems dealing with food and drink payment information, as well as other transactions throughout various parts of the hotels and resorts. The twenty affected properties include those under the Starwood, Marriot, Hyatt, and Intercontinental brands.
A spokesperson for HEI Hotels & Resorts said that malware is the corrupt player in this scenario, having been discovered by cyber security management personnel as early as the beginning of June on the POIs used everywhere from spas to restaurants, bars and gift shops on the hotels’ premises. Unfortunately the malware was actually installed and active from March 1, 2015 – over a year of credit card information from thousands upon thousands of visitors, silently snatched by malicious attackers. The types of data stolen in a credit card data breach like this one could vary as well – though the hacked POI system luckily does not store pin numbers for cards used, customer’s names, account numbers, expiration dates and verification codes could have been put at risk.
So far HEI has installed a new POI system and spoken with local authorities; given the correct cyber security management, HEI most likely wouldn’t have had to deal with such a significant data breach to begin with. Obviously there isn’t a 100% chance of catching and quashing a malicious attack the same as, or similar to, a credit card data breach before it happens, but whether it’s stopped before or early in its path, that’s a much better option than not at all. Neovera has everything in place to protect companies and organizations faced with these types of threats. With 24x7x365 monitoring and management options, the management and monitoring expertise of Neovera will take care of your cyber security protection worries for good.