Three MA hotels are among 54 Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. properties where customers’ personal payment card information was exposed in a credit and debit card breach. Also affected were the Sheraton, Westin and W locations in Los Angeles, New York, Boston and several other cities.
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Marriott worldwide Inc. recently agreed to acquire Starwood for $12.2 billion in a deal that would create the world’s largest hotel group.
Starwood’s President for the Americas, Sergio Rivera, said that the company has been “working closely with law enforcement authorities and…coordinating our efforts with the payment card organizations”.
Data stolen by the software could include customer names, credit card numbers, card security codes, and expiration dates.
Starwood said the 54 compromised hotels [PDF] were scattered throughout the U.S. and Canada, and were infected from as early as November of 2014 to June 30 of this year. The company said the affected payment systems were at the restaurants, gift shops and other places in the hotels.
The company said in a statement that it has removed the malware and “implemented additional security measures to help prevent this type of crime from reoccurring”.
Starwood listed the locations of each affected Starwood property online at www.starwoodhotels.com/paymentcardsecuritynotice.
The letter said the chain has arranged for identify protection and credit monitoring services and for a free credit report to be provided to customers who were potentially affected. There is no indication at this time that the Company’s guest reservation or Starwood Preferred Guest membership systems were impacted.
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The release instructs customers to review and monitor account statements.
