Improving data security in the hotel industry lets guests sleep peacefully | Hotel Mana... - 1 views
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The hospitality industry is quickly growing as a favored target of hackers and cybercriminals. In fact, according to the 2016 Trustwave Global Security Report, hospitality is the vertical industry with the second-highest number of data breaches, behind only the retail industry.
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Hotels are high-value targets for cybercriminals because they not only hold payment card information on guests, but also a wealth of other sensitive personal data that can be used to steal their identity.
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The fallout from a widespread data breach that compromises guests’ payment card data or personally identifiable information can be disastrous for a hotel chain. The average cost of a data breach in 2016 was $4 million. This figure encompasses everything from breach mitigation to crisis team management costs, business losses and even the more intangible consequences: damages to brand reputation.
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However, with more countries migrating to chip cards and EMV-compliant POS systems, attackers have shifted their focus to card-not-present fraud and are targeting industries where consumers are making their payments and reservations over the phone—such as hotel contact centers.
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If guests aren’t convinced that the hotel is keeping their personal and financial data secure, they will take their business elsewhere. In order to protect their brand reputation and their business, hotels need to create a culture of security throughout their entire organization that focuses on protecting guests’ digital property in addition to their physical property. One of the best places to start is their contact center.
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In an era of increasing cyberattacks, hotels can make themselves less of a target by adopting technology to ensure that payment card data and other personally identifiable information is kept secure and segregated from the contact center.
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With such an approach, customers calling to make a reservation or order additional services discreetly type their card numbers into the telephone keypad, rather than reading them out loud to the agent on the phone line. The data is securely routed to the payment gateway or a more secure server so it is never shared with the agent and is not held in the contact center infrastructure. This ensures that there is no possible spillover of the data to the unsecured or unmonitored areas of the business. It also reduces the number of individuals with access to the sensitive data, and makes the hotel contact center a less attractive target for cybercriminals. As an added benefit, this approach makes it easier for the hotel to comply with Payment card Industry Data Security Standards by reducing the scope of compliance. By keeping payment card data out of the contact center, hotels can significantly reduce the high costs and extensive time associated with maintaining PCI DSS compliance.
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With stronger security practices for handling guests’ sensitive data, the hotel industry as a whole can transform itself from being one of the most likely targets for data breaches to becoming a model for data security, thereby ensuring that fewer customers ever have to go through the experience
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Guests can sleep peacefully knowing that their data is secure, and the hotel can rest assured that its name won’t be making headlines as victim of a costly data breach.
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The hospitality industry is a major target for cyberattacks, resulting in sensitive guest information being compromised. When these attacks happen it leaves guests restless, because they know or believe their information is not safe. This article discusses this issue and how security can be improved to avoid these attacks.
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The article titled, "Improving data security in the hotel industry lets guests sleep peacefully" shows how the breach of data security can be anywhere. As technologies improve, so do ways in which cyber security can become at stake. According to this article, "Hotels are obligated to maintain the physical security of guests and their belongings during their stay-if guests don't feel safe staying in their room or leaving their belongings there, they won't continue to patronize that hotel brand. The same thinking applies to data security: If guests aren't convinced that the hotel is keeping their personal and financial data secure, they will take their business elsewhere". Thus, hotels need to make sure they are safeguarding information such as their payment information as well as other confidential information. Hackers are becoming even more sophisticated, where they can target specific industries, such as hotel industries since guests speak with hotel representatives over the phone to provide payment information. In the even that a hotel's data has been compromised, what is its responsibility? First, they should send the client a letter of apology, and then handle the complete process efficiently, so the client can at least feel they re supported. The avoidance and handling of data breach is becoming even more common nowadays with the rise of technology.