vpnMentor’s research team has discovered that Marriott, and other hotel brands managed by The Pyramid Hotel Group, have experienced a cybersecurity data leak, revealing vulnerabilities that could be utilized for another future attack.
Specifically, researchers discovered a breach that exposes 85.4GB of security audit logs, which include personally identifying information (PII) of employees of the affected companies and go back as far as April 19, 2019. This date may indicate system setup, reconfiguration, or maintenance that impacted the server and made it open and available to the world.
Related: The 5 Biggest Data Breaches in 2019 So Far (And How They Could Have Been Prevented)
Affected parties according to vpnMentor include Tarrytown House Estate (New York), Carton House Luxury Hotel (Ireland), Aloft Hotels (Florida), Temple Bar Hotel (Ireland) and other brands in the Pyramid Hotel Group.
The type of data that was leaked includes:
- Server API key and password
- Device names
- IP addresses of incoming connections to the system and geolocation
- Firewall and open ports information
- Malware alerts
- Restricted applications
- Login attempts
- Brute force attack detection
- Local computer name and addresses, including alerts of which of them has no antivirus installed
- Virus and Malware detected on various machines
- Application errors
- Server names and OS details
- Information identifying cybersecurity Policies
- Employees’ full names and usernames
The Danger of Exposing this Information
This database gives any would-be attacker the ability to monitor the hotels’ network, gather valuable information about administrators and other users, and build an attack vector targeting the weakest links in the security chain. It also enables the attacker to see what the security team sees, learn from their attempts based on the alerts raised by the systems, and adjust their attacks accordingly.
In the worst-case scenario, this leak has the potential to put not only systems at risk, but the physical security hotel guests and other patrons as well. The vpnMentor team found multiple devices that control hotel locking mechanisms, electronic in-room safes, and other physical security management systems.
How the Leak Was Discovered
vpnMentor’s research team is currently undertaking a huge web mapping project. Using port scanning to examine known IP blocks reveals gaps in web systems, which are then examined for vulnerabilities, including potential data exposure and breaches.
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