Marriott breach, up to 500 million customers.

Marriott said Friday that hackers have had access to the reservation systems of many of its hotel chains for the past four years, a breach that exposed private details of up to 500 million customers while underscoring the sensitive nature of records showing where and when people travel — and with whom.


The breach of the reservation system for Marriott’s Starwood subsidiaries was one of the largest in history, after two record-setting Yahoo hacks, and was particularly troubling for the nature of the data that apparently was stolen, security experts said. That includes familiar information — such as names, addresses, credit card numbers and phone numbers — and also rarer prizes for hackers, such as passport numbers, travel locations and arrival and departure dates.

The potential value of such information on such a large percentage of the world’s travelers triggered speculation that Marriott may have been the target of nation-state hackers seeking to track the movements of diplomats, spies, military officials and business executives. Yet even if the hackers were mere criminals in search of profit, such data offered the raw material for a range of possible misdeeds, including identity theft.
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