HOW SAFE IS YOUR INFORMATION

Posted on 11/24/2015

Starwood Hotels has confirmed a payment card data breach at 54 of its US locations. The hotel chain said a malware programme infected point of sale terminals in restaurants and retail outlets, but there was 'no indication' any room reservations or Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty membership accounts were compromised.

"The malware was designed to collect certain payment card information, including cardholder name, payment card number, security code and expiration date," the company said in a letter addressed to customers. "There is no evidence that other customer information, such as contact information, Social Security numbers or PINs, were affected by this issue." The attack apparently began a year ago, impacting hotels at different times and ended in April this year.

Starwood is offering affected customers free credit reporting for one year. "We sincerely regret any inconvenience this may cause. We take our obligation to safeguard personal information very seriously and are alerting affected customers about this incident so they can take steps to help protect their information," the company said. Starwood joins a number of hotel chains who have suffered security breaches with client credit cards. These include Hilton, Weston, Trump, Mandarin Oriental and Marriott.