The Marriott Starwood data breach could have affected up to 500 million people over a four year period, the company said in a statement on November 30. CEO Arne Sorensen apologized for the breach saying, “We deeply regret this incident happened. We fell short of what our guests deserve and what we expect of ourselves. We are doing everything we can to support our guests, and using lessons learned to be better moving forward. Today, Marriott is reaffirming our commitment to our guests around the world. We are working hard to ensure our guests have answers to questions about their personal information, with a dedicated website and call center. We will also continue to support the efforts of law enforcement and to work with leading security experts to improve. Finally, we are devoting the resources necessary to phase out Starwood systems and accelerate the ongoing security enhancements to our network.”
What Do I Do Next?
The Marriott Starwood group has set up a standalone website to answer customer’s questions about the breach. There is also a call center for customers that can be reached in the U.S. and Canada, on 877-273-9481. When Heavy.com contacted the call center, the person on the other end simply repeated the opening blurb from the standalone website. When asked about how to find out if your information has been compromised, the call center employee said the best idea was to take advantage of Marriott’s offer of one free year of WebWatcher.
If you think you may have been affected by the breach, you can enroll for the free year of WebWatcher here.
The Marriott statement says that the group was first contacted about a possible breach in September 2018. Shortly afterward, the company discovered that there had been “unauthorized access to the Starwood network since 2014. Marriott recently discovered that an unauthorized party had copied and encrypted information, and took steps towards removing it.”
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