by Donald Wood
Last updated: 3:11 PM ET, Tue August 20, 2019
A massive data breach of information from guests who stayed at Choice Hotels and its subsidiaries could have impacted as many as 700,000 travelers.
According to ConsumerAffais.com, the Choice Hotels data breach was the result of hackers discovering an unsecured database that contained 5.7 million Choice Hotel records, such as the names, email addresses and phone numbers of former guests.
Choice Hotels is the parent company of Clarion, EconoLodge, Comfort Inn, Quality Inn and more. While the company claims most of the data involved in the breach was "test data," the database was left unsecured online for four days before being discovered by a security team.
"The records did not contain payment, password or reservation information," a Choice Hotels spokesperson told Consumer Affairs. "We will be notifying affected guests to advise them of what occurred."
Security officials examining the data breach discovered a ransom note that said the database had already been downloaded and would be returned for around $4,000. Choice Hotels revealed the ransom attempt was not successful.
The hotel giant also announced it would continue to investigate the data leak and will no longer work with the vendor who hosted its data.
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