Marriott recently announced a huge data breach that has compromised the guest list of its Starwood division. The hack affected more than 500 million guests who had made reservations at Sheraton, Westin, W hotels, Four Points by Sheraton, Aloft, and St. Regis until September 10, 2018. Lawmakers in Washington responded by calling on the Congress to protect the consumer data and hold enterprises responsible for handling consumer data.
Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of Senate intelligence committee and co-founder of Cyber-security Caucus, said that mega-breaches have become way too common. He cautioned that it could soon become the new normal if no law is made to prevent such breaches.
Marriott is just a new entrant to the list of data breaches. Recently a Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific announced that a data breach has affected more than 9.4 million customers. In September, Facebook a social media giant announced that a data leak has led to a breach of more than 50 million of its users. Equifax a credit reporting agency announced that hackers almost stole 147.7 million users personal information.
Marriott’s data breach has put the personal information of many high-profile personalities at risk. The hackers were able to address credit card numbers, mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and other kinds of personal data of a user.