Articles tagged “cyber security”

Computer problems are nothing new for airlines and airports, but the scale of Friday's outage is without recent parallel, with Delta and United among those badly hit.

Hackers have found a weak link in Booking.com security — its hotel partners. And the threat to Booking.com customers has been stubbornly persistent.

The U.S. Department of Commerce agency charged with forming voluntary cybersecurity standards for companies has released security guidance to hotels. The new report addresses a need for tighter security for property management systems, a core piece of software for hotels, at a time of reduced hotel staffing.

It's easy to feel jaded about data breaches given how often they happen. But it will raise eyebrows that hackers obtained data on loyalty flyers of Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa, Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines, United, and other carriers by exploiting a SITA tech system not used by most of them.

With so much valuable customer information being processed each day, hotels are prime targets for data breaches. It’s vital that they stay abreast of how they can protect their guests as data security evolves and technologies and threats change.

The travel sector should pledge to never pay ransoms to hackers. But it either can't or won't. So the ransom payments will go on, helping to fund the criminal development of evermore spectacular attacks.

Several years ago, the hotel industry fought U.S. federal watchdog efforts to fine chains for negligent data protection practices, arguing that hotels had things under control. Hmm. A rash of hotel security incidents since then undercuts the claims of hotels, which need to take a more bank-like approach to data protection.

U.S. meeting planners expect the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation to have a major effect on how they manage data. While the giant meetings firms are prepared to comply with it, smaller companies and related meetings vendors may lag behind.