Marriott's huge data breach

It’s happened again – a massive data breach of personal information we all want to keep confidential but evidently can’t.

Marriott International has disclosed that around 500 million customer records worldwide have been hacked over a four-year period. That occurred in their subsidiary Starwood hotel chains.

These hackers found more than names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, and dates of birth. They found passport numbers and loyalty program data too. Encrypted credit card numbers were also stolen.

Learning from Target’s and Expedia’s loss of huge amounts of data in this way, Marriott is contacting by email those who have been affected if the email is on file.

They have also established a call center and website at https://answers.kroll.com/.

Further, those affected by the breach will have a year’s fraud monitoring service paid for by Marriott. The sign-up for the service is at the website shown above.

Marriott said it will not ask customers to provide their password by phone or email and told guests to stay vigilant against phishing attempts in the wake of the data breach.

The hackers didn’t do all this work for nothing, so checking your credit card statements closely is another way to do your part.