I stayed at a Marriott hotel near Boston last April, so I was very concerned when I heard about the Starwood breach. As a result, I’ve conducted a bit of research on the subject. Marriott purchased Starwood Hotel & Resorts, in part, because of Starwood’s popular loyalty program. Unfortunately, Marriott also purchased Starwood’s cyber issues. A vulnerability in Starwood’s hotel reservation system had been allowing unauthorized access to it since 2014, a year before the acquisition between the two corporations was even discussed. Although original estimates indicated more than 500 million guests were affected, recent estimates by Starwood top out at 383 million. Some of which may be duplicates. Phew! That makes me feel SO much better. You too? Here are the most recent figures released by Starwood (on January 4, 2019): 8.6 million encrypted payment card numbers were compromised 5.25 million UNencrypted passport numbers were compromised 20.3 million encrypted passport numbers were compromised 327 million guests had some combination of the following types of information compromised: Name Mailing address Date of birth Gender Arrival and departure info Reservation date Communication preferences Encrypted payment card numbers Although you may be breathing easier because stolen credit card info was encrypted, you might want to reconsider. Why? Well, it seems the encryption key might have been stolen right along with the payment card information. The bad guys had access to the system for 4 years. I wonder what other info they stole… From what I’ve learned, hotels are notoriously vulnerable to security…