Posted on July 12, 2017 at 1:13 PM

Trump’s Hotels have been Losing Credit Card Numbers to Hackers for Months

Up to 14 Trump properties were discovered to have had months-long security breaches that were affecting their customers. This time, the targets were the new President’s hotels, including those in New York, Washington, as well as in Vancouver. The customers of these hotels have had their credit card data exposed, and other info.

The attacks like this have affected many hotel chains in the last three years. This time, the breach seems to have occurred sometime between August of last year, and March 2017. The company’s official notice can be found on their website, and it includes the list of information that was stolen.

According to the notice, the guests have had their names, phone numbers, and addresses stolen. Also, credit card numbers and their expiration dates as well. The reservation service that Trump Hotels used was Sabre Hospitality Solutions. However, despite the fact that Sabre’s systems were compromised, it would seem that Trump Hotels’ systems remained intact.

The breach was supposedly uncovered on June 5. The hotel chain refused to comment on the matter, but they did leave the official notice.

This new attack came pretty soon after the hotel chain was forced to pay a large penalty for not informing the customers about earlier breaches. Last time, over 300 Social Security numbers were exposed, as well as 70,000 credit card numbers. They were also ordered to upgrade their security, to what the Trump International Hotels Management agreed.

Many analysts claim that hotels are often a target for such attacks due to their weak security. They have large quantities of credit card and Social Security data and combined with weak security, they make for perfect targets. Another major breach has happened earlier this year. That time, the target was InterContinental Hotel Group that has had over 1,200 locations compromised.

This time, the attack was made on Trump Hotels, which is seen as a symbolic target by many. Not only that, but the hotel chain also attracts some very high-profile individuals and businessmen, who all make for excellent targets for hackers. So basically, the more people go there in order to get a President’s favor, the more interesting target hotels become.

The first attack on Trump’s hotels happened in May of 2014. Back then, hackers installed a malware on the hotel’s personal network and tried to steal credit card info. The hotel found out about the breach in June 2015, and instead of notifying their customers about it, they kept quiet for months.

Then, later that same year, another attack took place. This one happened in November of 2015, and up to 39 systems got a malware infection. This included 5 different Trump hotels. And then, several months later, in March, one of the hackers attacked a legacy payment system.

In it, the hotel had personal data concerning the property owners. In total, those were Social Security numbers for over 300 people. The attacks have already happened so many times, that they are starting to become a huge problem.

Some of the most recent security breaches have had compromised less than 15% of the bookings on the daily basis.

However, there are other affected hotels as well, 21 of the affected locations belong to Loews Hotels, while 11 others belong to Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Experts say that this sort of breaches often lasts for months, or even years and the bad security is their worst enemy.

The number of attacks is increasing all the time, and hotels can’t afford to not do anything about it anymore.