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martyb writes:

Marriott Hack Hits 500 Million Guests:

The records of 500 million customers of the hotel group Marriott International have been involved in a data breach. The hotel chain said the guest reservation database of its Starwood division had been compromised by an unauthorised party. It said an internal investigation found an attacker had been able to access to the Starwood network since 2014.

[...] Starwood's hotel brands include W Hotels, Sheraton, Le Méridien and Four Points by Sheraton. Marriott-branded hotels use a separate reservation system on a different network.

Marriott said it was alerted by an internal security tool that somebody was attempting to access the Starwood database. After investigating, it discovered that an "unauthorised party had copied and encrypted information". It said it believed its database contained records of up to 500 million customers. For about 327 million guests, the information included "some combination" of name, mailing address, phone number, email address, passport number, account information, date of birth, gender, and arrival and departure information. It said some records also included encrypted payment card information, but it could not rule out the possibility that the encryption keys had also been stolen.

[...] The company has set up a website to give affected customers more information. It will also offer customers in the US and some other countries a year-long subscription to a fraud-detecting service.

The attacker had access since... 2014? To the records of half a billion customers? How many can invoke protections provided in GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)?

SoyCow0824 adds:

Source: Marriott breach leaves 500 million exposed with passport, card numbers stolen

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