A Sabre Corporation data breach has potentially resulted in the theft of credit card details and PII from the SynXis Hospitality Solutions reservation system. The Sabre Corporation data breach was acknowledged in Sabre Corp’s Q2 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Few details about the security incident have been released as the incident is currently under investigation.
What is known is the incident affects SynXis, a cloud-based SaaS used by more than 36,000 independent hotels and global hotel chains. The system allows employees to check room availability, pricing and process bookings.
Sabre Corporation recently discovered an unauthorized third party gained access to the system and potentially viewed the data of a subset of Sabre Corp’s hotel clients. Information potentially compromised as a result of the Sabre Corporation data breach includes the personally identifiable information and payment card information of hotel guests.
At this stage, Sabre Corporation is still investigating the breach and has not disclosed how the individual gained access to the payment system or when access was first gained. Sabre Corp is currently trying to determine exactly how many individuals have been affected, although affected companies have now been notified of the incident.
Sabre Corp has confirmed that the security breach only affected its SynXis Central Reservations system and unauthorized access has now been blocked. Law enforcement has been alerted to the incident and cybersecurity firm Mandiant contracted to conduct a full forensic investigation of its systems.
The Sabre Corporation data breach is the latest in a string of cyberattacks on hotel chains. Hyatt Hotels Corp, Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, Omni Hotels & Resorts, Trump Hotels, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Hotels, HEI Hotels & Resorts and InterContinental Hotels Group have all experienced data breaches in recent months that have resulted in the attackers gaining access to their card payment systems.
While the method used to gain access to Sabre’s system is not yet known, similar cyberattacks on hotel reservation and payment systems have involved malware and compromised login credentials.
If malware is installed on systems it can be used to monitor keystrokes and record login credentials. The sharing of login credentials and poor choices of passwords can also allow attackers to gain access to login credentials.
To protect against cyberattacks, hotels and their contracted SaaS providers should use layered defences including multiple systems to prevent the downloading of malware and multi-factor authentication to reduce the risk from compromised login credentials being used to gain access to POS systems.
Web filters should be used to control employees’ Internet access and downloads, an antispam solution used to prevent malicious emails from reaching end users’ inboxes and anti-virus and anti-malware solutions should be kept up to date and set to scan networks regularly.
Organizations in the hospitality sector must also ensure they have the basics correct, such as changing default passwords, using strong passwords and employing good patch management policies.