10 Million+ Victims Of Hotel Reservation Platform Breach. Are You One Of Them?
By: Jim Stickley and Tina Davis
January 21, 2021
Prestige Software, the Spain-based hotel reservation system, has bad news for those who used their services over the past seven years. Website Planet recently discovered that over ten million travelers using the platform had their data compromised in a massive breach. The breached data includes a ton of personally identifiable information (PII) such as full name, phone number, email address, account login information, credit card data (with expiration date and CVV code), and travel details. With the goldmine of PII now up for grabs on the dark web, understanding how this breach happened to begin with is important.
Sold by Prestige Software, their travel management platform known as Cloud Hospitality is used by online booking websites like Expedia and Booking.com. At least seven years of customer data has been stored from the start on a misconfigured Amazon SW3 bucket, a popular cloud-based data storage. Adding insult to injury, it was discovered that Prestige Software has poor security protocols for payment card data that ignores the industry safety standards set by the major credit card companies. Now we know that over ten million customers had their PII breached by a misconfigured Amazon Web Services (AWS) SW3 bucket and the mishandling of payment card data. It’s no secret that both hazards could and should have been avoided.
RedDoorz, another booking platform, disclosed that they also suffered a data leak after a database containing 5.8 million user records were discovered for sale on the Dark Web.
Where does this breach leave customers who unknowingly used Cloud Hospitality for their travel plans? If you’ve traveled in the past seven years using an online service, immediately check your accounts to find what PII is stored there. Also check the credit bureaus to see if any damage has already been done and consider putting a freeze on your accounts. The biggest threat to victims is identity theft, thanks to the gold mine of exposed PII. It’s also important to remember that if your PII was involved in this breach, hackers could hold onto it and exploit it at a later date. By doing so, they hope victims let their guard down over time, making their PII easier to abuse without getting caught.
The following are just a few of the travel sites involved in the breach, including third-party travel sites.
Among those affected include:
- Expedia
- Hotels.com
- Booking.com
- Agoda
- Hotelbeds
- Omnibeds
- Sabre
- Amadeus
Unfortunately for travelers, there are many more sites involved and one or more may have been used by them over seven years’ time. Going forward, let’s hope for happy and secure travels ahead!
What can you do to protect yourself:
- Go to HaveIBeenPwned.com to check if your email address has been stolen. If so, change your passwords and be sure to know how to spot phishing.
- Changing passwords and other login information is essential to avoid further identity damage. Use complex passwords that include letters, numbers, and special characters. Also make sure each account has a unique password.
- Use two-factor authentication (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA) whenever available, as it adds another layer of security when logging in to an account.
- Regularly check credit reports for any irregularities. Even the most trivial of suspicions need to be explored. Each person in the U.S. with credit can get a free report from each of the three major bureaus every year at annualcreditreport.com.
- If you find that you have had any of your personal or sensitive data accessed in any type of breach, consider freezing your credit reports. It is now free to freeze and unfreeze them. Just be sure to understand how that might affect you before doing it.
- Keep aware that all types of phishing can steal data. Email phishing, smishing (text phishing), and vishing (phone call phishing) are hacker favorites and any stolen data helps cast a wider net for identity theft.