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Half a billion people are affected by a recent data breach on Marriott hotel chains. According to a press release from the Marriott website, the hack only applies to hotels under the Starwood umbrella.

Marriott International has many companies that they own. Starwood is one brand and has a dozen hotel names under it including: W Hotels, St. Regis, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, Westin Hotels & Resorts, Element Hotels, Aloft Hotels, The Luxury Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Le Méridien Hotels & Resorts, Four Points by Sheraton and Design Hotels, and all Starwood branded timeshare properties.

In the press release, CEO of Marriott International says how sorry they are for this major breach, “We deeply regret this incident happened,” said Arne Sorenson, Marriott’s President and Chief Executive Officer.  “We fell short of what our guests deserve and what we expect of ourselves. We are doing everything we can to support our guests, and using lessons learned to be better moving forward.”

Marriott International noticed the hack back in September. They’ve since been investigating and found that there has been unauthorized access to their system since 2014. In total, Marriott believes up to 500 million guests have been affected. And more than have the guests have very compromising data that was hacked.

“For approximately 327 million of these guests, the information includes some combination of name, mailing address, phone number, email address, passport number, Starwood Preferred Guest (“SPG”) account information, date of birth, gender, arrival and departure information, reservation date, and communication preferences.  For some, the information also includes payment card numbers and payment card expiration dates,”.

https://twitter.com/MarriottIntl/status/1068460980621971456

If you stayed at a Starwood property in the last four years, and are worried that you information may have been leaked, go this website set up by Marriott International. Here you will find all the answers you need to make sure your data is secure.