Marriott Has Failed Again, and the Privacy of 5.2 Million People Has Been Exposed

Let me tell you a true story. Marriott International, a well-known hotel company, suffered another data breach. It was less than two years after they were fined for a similar incident.

Marriott recently reported another data breach, affecting as many as 5.2 million people. This is the second data breach at Marriott in the past two years.

Data leak, hackers again

On March 31, Marriott Hotels issued a statement:It said that at the end of February 2020, it was discovered that hackers used the login credentials of two employees of the franchised hotel to enter the Marriott hotel management system and access a certain amount of visitor information.

The activity began in mid-January 2020. Marriott claimed that after discovering the problem, it immediately disabled the login credentials, began an investigation, implemented strict monitoring, and notified and helped customers affected by the incident.

According to the report,The data breach affected approximately 5.2 million people.The leaked information includes all the information of staying in the hotel. 

The scope of the leaked information is wide

Some media reported that hotel guests' passports, driver's licenses and other information were also leaked, but Marriott denied this.

They said they were investigating the matter and had "no evidence that the compromised data included Marriott Bonvoy account passwords or PINs, payment card information, passport information, national ID or driver's license numbers."

In addition, to ensure safety, Marriott Bonvoy members affected by the incident will be given:Passwords have been completely disabled and customers are required to change their passwords at the next login and are provided with multi-factor authentication.

According to Marriott, for each affected customer, the compromised information may include the following categories:

• Contact details (e.g., name, mailing address, email address, and telephone number)
• Member account information (e.g., account number and points balance, but not password)
• Other personal details (e.g. company, gender, date of birth)
• Partnerships and affiliations (e.g., associated airline loyalty programs and headcount)
• Preferences (e.g., housing/room preferences and language preferences)

At present, Marriott has sent an email to the relevant guests, apologizing and explaining the follow-up procedures.

Marriott: I am always the one who gets hurt

As a well-known hotel, Marriott is often troubled by data security issues. This is the second major data breach that Marriott has encountered in less than two years.

On November 30, 2018, a room reservation database of Starwood, a subsidiary of Marriott, was hacked.The personal data and guest records of up to 500 million guests (later revised to 383 million) may have been leaked.

The data included 5 million unencrypted passport numbers and 8 million credit card records. At the time, European regulators reported the data breach toA fine of $123 million was imposed on Marriott.

It seems that Marriott, a wealthy and powerful company, still hasn't learned its lesson.

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