Up to 5.2 million guests have been affected by the latest data breach in Marriott International, the world's biggest hotel chain announced on Tuesday.     

Unknown attackers tried to access data such as guests' birthdays, gender, phone numbers, physical and email addresses, company associations and language preferences.

Marriott said that investigation into the breach was still ongoing but noted that "the company currently has no reason to believe that the information involved included Marriott Bonvoy account passwords or PINs, payment card information, national IDs, or driver's license numbers."

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The chain also said it has notified relevant authorities and was "supporting their investigations."

Target of massive hacking

The breach started in mid-January 2020 and was discovered and halted at the end of February. The company believes that the guest information "may have been accessed using the login credentials of two employees at a franchise property."

In an online statement released on Thursday, the company said it was sending emails to affected guests and has set up a call center and a dedicated website at www.mysupport.marriott.com with additional information.

The latest breach comes less than a year and a half after the same chain was targeted in a massive hacking that saw attackers gain access to data of around half a billion people, making it one of the biggest data breaches in history.

dj/sri (Reuters, AP)

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