Hospitality: Stopping third-party breaches

It’s been a turbulent year so far for the hospitality industry... data breaches, unauthorized vendor access, cybersecurity issues – all impacting hotels in 2017. In this blog, we'll look at ways of stopping third-party breaches. As customers become more technology-savvy, it sets the bar high for hotels to provide a superior digital experience for their guests. Stemming from online booking, to keycard room access, all the way through to digital check-in capabilities and secure internet access while visiting a hotel – the hospitality industry has to step up its game to meet guests’ modern technology requirements. However, the more technology advances, the more this creates potential security issues for the hospitality world. Have you considered that your hotel’s reputation could be severely damaged if you become susceptible to one of the latest hacking attacks targeting the hospitality industry right now? Not to mention the high costs associated with cybercrimes. Can you afford to risk that happening?

Sabre Corp. & IHG experience breaches

Take for example the recent breach at Texas-based Sabre Corp. Last week, the travel firm announced it was investigating unauthorized access to payment and booking data on their reservations system across 32,000 hotels. And earlier this year, America’s division of InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) confirmed a payment card breach at 12 U.S. hotels. The hotel chain discovered malware was installed on their servers late last year and called in cybersecurity experts to look into the matter.

Securing your guests’ data

As a hotel, it’s your responsibility to keep your customers’ data protected. To keep it safe from the hands of cybercriminals. To ensure your guests’ personal, sensitive information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. To protect your consumers from becoming victims of fraud. To stop attackers from exploiting any weaknesses there may be in your hotel loop. It falls on your shoulders to secure your entire network and meet PCI standards. In order to reduce your liability and prevent exposure of your hotel guests’ information, you should also keep a close eye on vendor access across your network and servers. Hackers often target smaller third-party vendors to gain access to a larger business or hotel network. You should monitor, track and control all third-party access to your critical data. Clamping down on vendor access and being aware of who is accessing what at any point in time will help keep your customers’ data safe and secure. By implementing a security platform to streamline your vendor access, you’ll heighten your network protection, plus be certain that you’re in compliance with the latest regulations.