• Hackers havel hotels in their sights as technology replaces personal touch    

Excerpt from Financial Times

Hotels in hackers' sights as technology replaces personal touch

Hotels and hospitality businesses are now the third most targeted by cyber attackers of all industry sectors. Despite being bricks-and-mortar enterprises — set up for physical enjoyment of their amenities — they have become a rich mine of data for hackers with nefarious intentions.

Before Covid-19 forced hotels into a two-year period of on-off closures, they were the victims of 13 per cent of cyber compromises, according to Trustwave’s 2020 Global Security Report — ranking just a little lower than retail and financial services companies.

And with hotels facing a difficult pandemic recovery and acute staff shortages, the increased use of technology to replace face-to-face services such as check-in and on-site payments has only raised this risk.

 “Historically, hospitality has been a personal service but I think they have started to realise that technology can facilitate a lot of that,” says Tristan Gadsby, chief executive of hospitality consultancy Alliants.

What would previously, for example, have been an in-person chat or phone conversation, Gadsby notes, is now more often a virtual chat exchange. “We are seeing three times as many messages being sent post-Covid, compared to pre-Covid, per guest.”

In a sign of the times, the US commerce department last year issued its first set of guidelines for how hotels should secure customer data and critical software systems.

Meanwhile, authorities monitoring Covid’s spread have also required more data from hotels — including guests’ contact details and health status.

Thomas Magnuson, founder of Magnuson Hotels, an umbrella company for hundreds of independent establishments, says his company tries to take minimal information from guests as “sometimes, when you travel, you feel like it is the biggest data grab of all time”.

Hackers see international hotel chains, which process a huge volume of transactions, as easy pickings. Hotel groups also run valuable loyalty schemes with millions of members, who give up their data in order to earn points and improve their stays.

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