Oh Good, Another Huge Company Hacked for Credit Card Information

Hey, you haven’t been foolish even to treat yourself to a nice stay at a fancy place like the Hilton recently, right? Well, you might be SOL!

According to CNN, a major chain of hotel franchises is the latest victim of credit card data theft:

White Lodging — a company that maintains Hilton, Marriott, Sheraton and
Westin hotel franchises — has apparently suffered a data breach that
exposed guests’ credit and debit card information in 2013, independent
security researcher Brian Krebs said.

Banking industry sources
noticed fraud among hundreds of cards that had been previously used at
Marriott hotels, wrote Krebs, who first reported that Target had
suffered a massive data breach around Black Friday last year.

Krebs said it was hard to pinpoint the source of the hack because of the “pattern of the fraud,” which only showed up in Marriott hotels in Austin, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles among others. He said they realized the common thread was all of the locations were managed by White Lodging. In a statement about the ongoing investigation, White Lodging said they “will provide meaningful information as soon as it
becomes available.”

Marriott’s spokesperson also said they were looking into the hack. “We are working closely
with the franchise management company as they investigate the matter,”
spokesman Jeff Flaherty told CNN. “Because the suspected breach did not
impact any systems that Marriott owns or controls, we do not have
additional information to provide.”

First Target, then Neiman Marcus and now a bunch of swanky hotels. Hackers are moving up in the world. Probably because they have all of our money that they stole.

Oh goodie. I stayed at Hilton a bunch of times last year. (Because OK in my fantasy world where I mingle with celebrities one day, I will run into Paris Hilton at a club in Las Vegas one day and say “OMG I never stay anywhere but Hilton; they are just so wonderful and fabulous.” And she will look at me, stoned, and then walk away, muttering to herself that she’s got to get better security to keep the weirdos away.)