Hyatt Hotels Hit By International Payment Card Data Breach… Again

A 15-week malware attack stole data from 41 hotels across 11 countries.

If you’ve stayed at a Hyatt, you may want to check your credit card bill because the international hotel chain has reportedly had yet another credit card breach. This marks the second time Hyatt hotel has such an incident since December 2015.

41 Hyatt hotels across 13 countries have been affected, according to a report from the hotels. Most of the incidents took place in China, as well as three hotels in Hawaii and properties in India, Japan and Saudi Arabia. Affected guests stayed at the properties between March 18 and July 2.

Chuck Floyd, global president of operations for Hyatt Hotels Corporation posted an open letter on the Hyatt website addressing the incident and assuring those affected that the only information that was obtained was that of the card, including cardholder name, card number, expiration date and internal verification code.

According to Floyd, only a small amount of cards were affected. He went on to say that the hotel is implementing further measures to prevent future attacks. He says that guests can feel safe using credit cards to pay for their stays at Hyatt hotels.

However, Hyatt had made similar promises when it faced a security breach back in 2015. That time, 250 hotels in 50 countries were affected by malware that had been installed on Hyatt systems in order to “steal credit card data on computers that operate the payment processing systems for Hyatt-managed locations.”

Hyatt is one of a growing number of chains that has been targeted by hackers that are looking for credit card data stored on computers at hospitality chains including restaurants and hotels. Cyber hackers are moving away from focusing on financial institutions and creating elaborate schemes that allow them to access information at hospitality industries, especially credit card information that is gained from point-of-sales systems.