Best Western Hotels confirms attempted data hijacking

Best Western Hotels has issued a statement confirming that an attempted data hijacking that took place last week has only affected 10 of its customers.

The Sunday Herald yesterday reported that Indian hackers had stolen the data of "up to eight million" Best Western guests, by placing a "Trojan virus" in an IT system at the Schloss Kopenick hotel in Berlin, Germany

Details were then rumoured to have been sold via an underground network operated by the Russian mafia.

But, in response, Best Western today said that, on Thursday August 21, three separate attempts were made via a single log-on ID to access the same data from the Berlin hotel. The virus was detected by the hotel's anti-virus software.

The log-in ID only permitted access to reservations data for the property in question, the statement said. The log-in ID was immediately taken out of use while the computer in question was also removed from use.

Best Western added that the number of affected customers had been narrowed down to ten. The group is now working with the FBI and international authorities to investigate further.

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By Gemma Sharkey

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