Marriott’s breach affected around 500 million people

Image Credits CNBC.com – Marriott

Almost 500 people are affected by the Marriott breach which possibly includes anyone who stays at ubiquitous Marriott and Starwood properties across the world. A mysterious attacker stole the information that includes emails, names, addresses, passport numbers, and all the possible payments, card details in a quite slow-moving attack that lasted four years.

Marriot stock is down by 5 percent in the mixed market. Golladay of RBC Capital Marketers in an analyst stated that the uncertainty regarding a potential impact to the brand will likely consider on the thoughts for today trading. He also mentioned that other companies that have worked through large data breach issues and they expect Marriott to the same.

Marriott has cyber insurance as the company informed in an 8K filed today. The company said that the most part of the breach is not yet clear and the investigation is pending. They also exclaimed that investigating all the aspects of the attacks as to know how it occurred, whether unencrypted payment data was accesses or why a security tripwire wasn’t activated when the thefts began in 2014, among all other details.

Like all other big companies that deal with sensitive financial data, Marriot also has a sophisticated cybersecurity program with admittance to the top-line security vendors and tools. Marriott will almost certainly do an internal review to find out about the products that failed and the reason behind it.

The incident which affected the Starwood guest reservation database may also come in the question of how the company has conducted cybersecurity due to diligence prior to its merger with the rival chain. In the year 2016, merger brought the W Hotel, Sheraton, and St. Regis brands into the Marriott fold.

There are many companies in recent years have suffered major headaches after merging when acquired companies fell victim to a breach that includes Under Armour and FedEx. To know more about the Marriott incident in details the board and the investors will ask questions about how the security and technology system merged in the Starwood deal, how the security team merged and they use to communicate with one another on the following deal, even the information on which the security vendors the chain had been contracting with and whether any of the agreements are changing.

Related Posts :