Parts of IHG Hotels & Resorts’ technology systems were “subject to unauthorized activity” over the past few days, the company said in a news release on Tuesday. According to LoyaltyLobby’s research, the company’s website and app went offline at 9 pm on Sunday for “scheduled maintenance” and only briefly came back online on Monday from 11 am to 1 pm.
Even though the website is operational again, a notice informs visitors that they can still experience difficulties making reservations, getting information about impending reservations, or accessing their IHG One Rewards accounts. According to a news statement, the corporation has contacted the appropriate regulatory agencies and has outside experts look into the attack.
“IHG is working to fully restore all systems as soon as possible and to assess the nature, extent and impact of the incident. We will be supporting hotel owners and operators as part of our response to the ongoing service disruption. IHG’s hotels are still able to operate and to take reservations directly,” the news release said.
As soon as the company has more information about the situation, it will give an update.
This is not the first data breach in the hotel sector in recent memory. In July, Marriott International suffered a cyberattack when an international party obtained data through an associate at the Marriott BWI Airport in Baltimore. The disclosure included passenger names, credit card numbers, and airline staff reservation data.
In November 2018, Marriott announced that Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which it bought in September 2016, had experienced a data breach that may have affected up to 500 million guests over a four-year period. According to the Wall Street Journal, this breach was one of the biggest ever made public at the time.
Source: HotelNewsNow
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