Holiday Inn Hotels become the latest victim of a cyber-attack

As we’ve mentioned in our previous blogs on the subject, cyber-attacks are getting even more sophisticated than ever before with cybercriminals finding new ways to attack businesses. 

This point was proven recently with the Holiday Inn hotels (owned by Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG)) announcing that they had suffered a cyber-attack.  

In a statement, they went on to add that they were looking into ‘unauthorised access’ to a host of its internal technology systems. Furthermore, the company that is based in the UK went on to state that its ‘booking channels and other applications’ had been impacted since last week. 

This is a pretty significant cyber attack as IHG owns a franchise of hotels including Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and Regent hotels.  

In response to the cyber-attack, IHG stated that they were working round the clock to get the systems back up and running as quickly as possible. As well as this, IHG also confirmed that they were investigating the nature, extent and impact of the incident and had put into action its response plans, in addition to bringing in external specialists to look into the breach. As part of due diligence, IHG has also reported the breach to the relevant regulatory authorities. 

As part of the statement, IHG also mentioned that they will be supporting hotel owners and operators in accordance with their response to ongoing service disruption. Also, confirming that all the hotels will be continuing to operate and to take reservations directly. 

Despite this statement, many of its customers have been finding it difficult to achieve just that. 

The one thing that IHG didn’t confirm in its statement was whether or not there had been any loss of customer data. As well as this, IHG didn’t confirm whether or not it was a ransomware attack but most of the facts suggest that it is likely to have been. 

This latest cyber-attack follows on from last month where a Holiday Inn in Istanbul suffered a breach by LockBit which revealed the data that it had taken directly from the company. 

Next Steps? 

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