Are you booked in a hacker-friendly hotel? | consumerreports.org
Accusations by the FTC and a security expert suggest consumers should guard against data theft in some hotels
If you’re making hotel reservations for spring and summer, take heed of Consumer Reports’ new travelers’ advisory: Be careful at hacker-friendly hotels, which leave the welcome mat out for data thieves by failing to comply with even the most rudimentary data security safeguards. As recently as five years ago, Wyndham Worldwide, with about 7,000 hotels under a dozen well-known brands, let Russian hackers steal data involving 619,000 accounts of customers who stayed at 41 Wyndham- branded hotels, not just once—in April, 2008—not just a second time—in March, 2009—but also a third time later that same year, according to a Federal Trade Commission first amended complaint filed in 2012. The theft led to $10.6 million in unauthorized charges.
