Personal information may have been accessed from as many as 500 million people who made reservations at the hotel within the last four years. This was just announced today by the company.

Marriott was alerted of the situation on September 8 and had security experts look into the situation further. It was found out that the Starwood network had been breached all the way back to 2014. The unauthorized party was found to have accessed the Starwood guest reservation database.

Marriott has not finished decrypting all the data that was stolen but they believe the following personal information was accessed:

• Name
• Mailing Address
• Phone Number
• Email Address
• Passport Number
• Date of Birth
• Gender
• Arrival and Departure Information
• Reservation Date
• Communication Preferences
• Starwood Preferred Guest Account Information
• Payment and Card Information

This is believed to be one of the largest data breaches ever. Marriott faces potential legal repercussions and a major hit to its reputation.

Marriott has reported the breach to law enforcement and they will be sending out an email to affected customers. The Marriott said it is also offering affected guests one free year of WebWatcher Enrollment.

The company stated “We deeply regret this incident happened,” said Marriott President and CEO Arne Sorenson said in a statement.  “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.”

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