Starwood Hotels & Resorts suffered data breach when undisclosed amount of customer payment card data may have been accessed. The incident happened when the point of sale systems at 54 of its hotels in North America were infected with malware.
“Promptly after discovering the issue, Starwood engaged third-party forensic exper
Starwood Hotels & Resorts cyber attack
ts to conduct an extensive investigation to determine the facts,” the company said in a statement. “Based on the investigation, malware was detected that affected certain restaurants, gift shops and other point of sale systems at the relevant Starwood properties.”
“The affected hotels have taken steps to secure customer payment card information and the malware no longer presents a threat to customers using payment cards at Starwood hotels,” the company added.
Affected data collected by the malware includes cardholder names, payment card numbers, security codes and expiration dates.
“Quickly after we became aware of the possible issue, we took prompt action to determine the facts,” Sergio Rivera, Starwood President, The Americas, said in a statement. “We have been working closely with law enforcement authorities and have been coordinating our efforts with the payment card organizations. We want to assure our customers that we have implemented additional security measures to help prevent this type of crime from reoccurring.”
According to the reports, all those affected are being offered one year of free access to identity protection and credit monitoring services from AllClear ID.
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