Hyatt Hotels Hit by Hacker

Today Hyatt Hotels issued a warning to their visitors in the wake of a cache of malware being discovered on their customer payment system being discovered. This isn’t the first hotel chain to suffer security issues recently, with Hilton, Mandarin Oriental, Starwood and Trump Collection all having suffered issues with the security of their payment systems.

The security breach was made public by Hyatt’s Global President of Operations, Chuck Floyd, in a post on their official website. While there was no mention of exactly when the issue was discovered, he reported that the problem had been fixed and the system in place have had their security strengthened. Previous customers have been encouraged to check their credit card statements in case of unauthorized use of their payment details.

A lot of the details regarding the incident still remain unclear and unmentioned by Hyatt. They neither confirmed nor denied whether the malware led to the leaking of any customer data. Hyatt is currently investigating the issue fully with the help of leading third-party cybersecurity experts. The results of this investigation will be posted on Hyatt’s website.

Operating in 52 countries and with 627 hotels in their portfolio, the potential impact of this hack is huge if it led to the leak of customers’ personal and payment details. Thankfully, only around half of their properties were impacted by the malware, with franchised hotels managing to be unaffected.