8 million victims in the world’s biggest cyber heist
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Although the security breach was closed on Friday after Best Western was alerted by the Sunday Herald, experts fear that information seized in the raid is already being used to pursue a range of criminal strategies. These include:
Armed with the numbers and expiry dates of customers’ credit cards, fraudsters are equipped to make multiple high-value purchases in their victims’ names before selling on the goods.
Bundled together with home addresses and other personal details, the stolen data can be used by professional organised criminal gangs which specialise in identity theft to apply for loans, cards and credit agreements in the victims’ names.
Because the compromised information included future bookings, the gang now has the capacity to sift through the data and sell “burglary packs”, giving the home addresses of local victims and the dates on which they are expected to be away from their home.
Although the nature of internet crime makes it extremely difficult to track the precise details of the raid, the Sunday Herald understands that a hacker from India – new to the world of cyber-crime – succeeded in bypassing the system’s security software and placing a Trojan virus on one of the Best Western Hotel machines used for reservations. The next time a member of staff logged in, her username and password were collected and stored.
It is important to do what you can to protect yourself from identity theft. Unfortunately if large companies fail to protect your private information you are left to cope with the consequences. As far as I can tell from reading the article it seems to be saying those staying or reserving lodging at Best Western hotels in Europe are those in danger of identity theft.
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