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A hacker gained access to information on the reservation of thousands of hotel rooms in the Middle East.
In early 2016, an American hacker hacked into the servers of the Booking.com hotel website and stole data on thousands of hotel reservations in the Middle East. After two months of investigation, IT specialists at Booking.com determined that the hacker had close ties to the American intelligence services. The site administration kept silent about the data breach and did not report the incident to clients or authorities. This was reported by the NRC newspaper.
The site's management requested assistance from the Dutch intelligence service AIVD in investigating the massive data breach, but did not notify the affected clients or the Dutch data protection agency. According to the site's administration, it was allegedly not required by law at the time.
Booking specialists accidentally discovered the fact of espionage in early 2016. A security officer at the company's headquarters in Amsterdam discovered that an unknown user had access to Booking systems through a weakly secured server. The hacker gained access to thousands of hotel reservations in the Middle East (including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates).
The incident, internally referred to as a "PIN leak", was independently confirmed by three former Booking security experts and one of the executives at the time of the breach. With the help of American private detectives, the Booking department was able to identify the American hacker Andrew two months later, who worked for an unnamed company on assignments for the American intelligence services.
In 2013, information leaked that the United States was spying on hotel websites in order to track the movement of foreign diplomats and install wiretapping equipment in hotel rooms. Whistleblower Edward Snowden then reported that the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) monitored foreign diplomats for high-class hotel bookings. The Royal Concierge tracked 350 premium hotels worldwide. This made it possible to find out the number in which one or another high-ranking official intends to stay, and to introduce bugs into telephones.
A Booking.com spokesman confirmed that "unusual activity" was detected in 2016. According to the spokesperson, since there was no “evidence of an actual adverse effect on people's privacy,” Booking did not report the data breach.
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In early 2016, an American hacker hacked into the servers of the Booking.com hotel website and stole data on thousands of hotel reservations in the Middle East. After two months of investigation, IT specialists at Booking.com determined that the hacker had close ties to the American intelligence services. The site administration kept silent about the data breach and did not report the incident to clients or authorities. This was reported by the NRC newspaper.
The site's management requested assistance from the Dutch intelligence service AIVD in investigating the massive data breach, but did not notify the affected clients or the Dutch data protection agency. According to the site's administration, it was allegedly not required by law at the time.
Booking specialists accidentally discovered the fact of espionage in early 2016. A security officer at the company's headquarters in Amsterdam discovered that an unknown user had access to Booking systems through a weakly secured server. The hacker gained access to thousands of hotel reservations in the Middle East (including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates).
The incident, internally referred to as a "PIN leak", was independently confirmed by three former Booking security experts and one of the executives at the time of the breach. With the help of American private detectives, the Booking department was able to identify the American hacker Andrew two months later, who worked for an unnamed company on assignments for the American intelligence services.
In 2013, information leaked that the United States was spying on hotel websites in order to track the movement of foreign diplomats and install wiretapping equipment in hotel rooms. Whistleblower Edward Snowden then reported that the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) monitored foreign diplomats for high-class hotel bookings. The Royal Concierge tracked 350 premium hotels worldwide. This made it possible to find out the number in which one or another high-ranking official intends to stay, and to introduce bugs into telephones.
A Booking.com spokesman confirmed that "unusual activity" was detected in 2016. According to the spokesperson, since there was no “evidence of an actual adverse effect on people's privacy,” Booking did not report the data breach.
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