The Latest in IT Security

The hotel management firm White Lodging is the latest company to suffer a credit card data breach, exposing guests at Hilton, Marriott, Sheraton, and Westin hotels throughout the country to risk of theft.  According to cyber security expert Brian Krebs — who first broke the story of Targets massive data breach, and retailer Neiman Marcuss less massive one — thousands of hotel patrons could have been exposed to the breach in 2013. Earlier this month, multiple sources in the banking industry began sharing data indicating that they were seeing a pattern of fraud on hundreds of cards that were all previously used at Marriott hotels from roughly March 23, 2013 on through the end of last year. But those same sources said they were puzzled by the pattern of fraud, because it was seen only at specific Marriott hotels, including locations in Austin, Chicago Denver, Los Angeles, Louisville and Tampa. Turns out, the common thread among all of those Marriott locations is that they are managed by Merrillville, Indiana-based White Lodging Services Corporation.