WASHINGTON, D.C.
The federal government has filed suit against Wyndham Hotels after sensitive customer data, including credit card numbers and personal information, allegedly were stolen three times in less than two years.
The Federal Trade Commission alleges in the suit that Wyndham Hotels' poor security policies provided Russian hackers access to more than 500,000 customer accounts three different times between 2008 and 2010. Hackers used the data to rack up more than $10.6 million in fraudulent credit card transactions, according to the suit filed in the U.S. District Court of Arizona.
A Wyndham spokesman claims the company notified affected customers following the incidents and offered them credit monitoring services. However, the FTC’s complaint alleges that the company failed to take proper security measures even after the company was aware of a security breach, according to the FTC's complaint.
The FTC said Wyndham should have instituted complex user IDs and passwords, and fixed software that stored the company's customer credit card data in clear readable text. Wyndham didn't make the fixes, the government alleges, and the hackers were able to gain access to servers on two more occasions. Read the full story here.
Courtesy of CNN.com
