Hilton confirms malware accessed payment info at its hotels
If you've stayed at one of Hilton's hotels in the past year, you might want to check your credit card history. The chain has confirmed a report that malware compromised its payment systems, putting your data at risk. The intruders got in between November 18th and December 5th in 2014, and between April 21st and July 27th this year. The malware didn't expose home addresses or PIN codes, but it did get access to card numbers, security codes and names -- enough that hackers could potentially make purchases.
Hilton is quick to say that it eliminated the rogue code, and it's offering a year's worth of free credit monitoring if you're nervous. With that said, this is a story we've heard all too often: it's a belated warning (about two months after a third-party discovery) for data breaches that could have been devastating far earlier. While there's no guarantee that Hilton could have stopped the intrusions in the first place, it would have ideally notified travelers the moment it realized that something was wrong.
[Image credit: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan]
