Pierluigi Paganini February 05, 2017

Hackers compromised payment systems at 12 US properties of the InterContinental Hotels Group and stolen card data with a malware.

The hospitality giant InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has confirmed that payment systems of 12 US hotels were victims of a massive data breach. Just a month ago the company InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) confirmed an ongoing investigation of alleged card breach at some of its properties.

The InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) informed its customers that payment cards used between August and December 2016, at restaurants and bars of the 12 US hotels were affected by the data breach. The affected properties include the InterContinental San Francisco and Holiday Inn Resort – Aruba, the InterContinental Chicago Magnificent Mile.

The hackers used a malware to infect payment systems and steal card data, including cardholders’ name, card number, expiration date, and internal verification code.

“IHG hired leading cyber security firms to examine the payment card processing systems for the hotels that it manages in the Americas region. Based on the investigation, IHG is providing notification to guests who used their payment card at restaurants and bars of 12 company managed properties during the time periods from August 2016 – December 2016. An investigation of other properties in the Americas region is ongoing.” reads the official announcement published by the company.

The hospitality giant confirmed that the malicious code used by crooks did not affect payment cards used at the front desk.

“Findings show that malware was installed on servers that processed payment cards used at restaurants and bars of 12 IHG managed properties.  Cards used at the front desk of these properties were not affected.” continued the statement from the company.

The InterContinental Hotels Group reported the security breach to the law enforcement and is collaborating with the payment card networks to allow banks monitoring for fraudulent transactions.

At the time I was writing there is no news regarding the number of affected customers.

IHG established a dedicated call center to answer any questions of the guests, for additional information about the security breach it is possible to visit the following website:

www.ihg.com/protectingourguests.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – InterContinental Hotels, card breach)