Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Inc., an American global
hospitality company formerly known as Hilton Worldwide and Hilton Hotels
Corporation, has started its investigation after a security researcher Brian
Krebs claimed that some hackers had compromised credit card data in gift shops
and restaurants at a “large number” of Hilton Hotel and franchise properties
across the United States.
The researcher said that the hackers broke into
point-of-sale machines.
However, it is not clear that how many Hilton properties might
get affected by the incident, that might have happened date back to November
2014, and may still be ongoing.
“In August, Visa sent confidential alerts to numerous
financial institutions warning of a breach at a brick-and-mortar entity that is
known to have extended from April 21, 2015 to July 27, 2015. The alerts to each
bank included card numbers that were suspected of being compromised, but per
Visa policy those notifications did not name the breached entity,” the
researcher added.
He said that other five different banks had said that the
common point-of-purchase for cards included in that alert had only one
commonality. They were all were used at Hilton properties, including the
company’s flagship Hilton locations as well as Embassy Suites, Doubletree,
Hampton Inn and Suites, and the upscale Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts.
“Hilton Worldwide is strongly committed to protecting our
customers’ credit card information,” the company said in a statement. “We have
many systems in place and work with some of the top experts in the field to
address data security. Unfortunately the
possibility of fraudulent credit card activity is all too common for every
company in today’s marketplace. We take
any potential issue very seriously, and we are looking into this matter.”