US hospitality giant Marriott International has admitted the stolen passport numbers of over five million guests were not encrypted. The cyber attack was not as extensive as initially thought, with up to 383 million records comprised rather than a suggested 500 million, but the failure of Marriott-owned Starwood Hotels to protect the passport data of guests gives the hackers important tracking information. But private cyberintelligence groups that have looked at the breach have seen strong parallels with the other, Chinese-related attacks underway at the time. While 20.3 million passport numbers encrypted, 5.25 million were not. In an email sent on Monday evening from its UK head office in London, Marriott said it had been informed by law enforcement that some customers may have suffered unauthorised access and therefore lost their data.
US hospitality giant Marriott International has admitted the stolen passport numbers of over five million guests were not encrypted. The cyber attack was not as extensive as initially thought, with up to 383 million records comprised rather than a suggested 500 million, but the failure of Marriott-owned Starwood Hotels to protect the passport data of guests gives the hackers important tracking information. While 20.3 million passport numbers encrypted, 5.25 million were not. In an email sent on Monday evening from its UK head office in London, Marriott said it had been informed by law enforcement that some customers may have suffered unauthorised access and therefore lost their data.