Dozens of Starwood hotels around the country were hit with malware that enabled cyber thieves to access credit and debit card information from point of sale terminals.
Advertisement
“Protecting our customers’ information is critically important to Starwood and we take this issue extremely seriously”, said Sergio Rivera, Starwood President, the Americas.
Starwood said in the press release that they have immediately engaged third-party forensic experts to conduct an intensive investigation to determine the facts following the discovery of the issue. Customer’s payment information has been affected including cardholder names, payment card number, security codes and expiration dates.
“We have been working closely with law enforcement authorities and have been coordinating our efforts with the payment card organizations”, he said.
FILE – In this Wednesday, July 31, 2013, file photo, the logo for the W Hotel, owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, is seen in New York’s Times Square.
It includes several brands including Sheraton, St Regis, W Hotels and Westin Hotels, in locations from Seattle and Los Angeles to Florida and NY.
Just like other companies, Starwood is offering a free year of identity protection and credit monitoring.
Starwood also said in its statement that it hired a team to isolate the remove the malware from the system, and that additional safeguards have now been implemented to ensure that a similar attack does not take place in the future. Rivera says there’s no evidence to suggest that other customer information, including contact information, Social Security numbers, and PINs were comprised.
Advertisement
For a complete list of affected hotels, you may visit this website.
