by Donald Wood
Last updated: 5:16 PM ET, Mon September 28, 2015
Reports have surfaced that Hilton Worldwide has allegedly been hit with a credit card breach, impacting customers who made purchases in gift shops and restaurants at properties owned by the hotel company.
In a report from Brian Krebs of KrebsOnSecurity.com, industry insiders have discovered a pattern in fraudulent activity that points to the possibility of hackers attacking registers in the retail and food service establishments located at "a large number" of Hilton properties.
The report claims Visa sent notices to financial institutions warning about the possible credit card breach between April 21, and July 27, 2015, but the alerts did not reveal which company was allegedly hacked.
Krebs said that five different banks told him they have found similarities between the hacks, revealing that the breached credit cards were all reportedly used at Hilton properties such as Embassy Suites, Doubletree, Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts and others.
The guest reservation system is not believed to be impacted by the breach, but instead the hack likely came from point-of-sale registers in the gift shops and restaurants on Hilton property. The report claims there is no estimate on how many customers were affected.
Krebs also reported that the breach could have started as far back as November 2014 and it may still be going on right now. Hilton released a statement regarding the reports of being hacked:
"Hilton Worldwide is strongly committed to protecting our customers' credit card information. 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."
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