Davey Winder
Tuesday, 26 August 2008 19:33
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When a Scottish newspaper revealed that Best Western had been the victim of what it called the world's biggest cyber heist, the hotel chain fought back with claims that the reports of the breach were grossly unsubstantiated. I've spoken to the reporter who uncovered the breach, and seen the screenshots backing up his claims...
The
world's biggest cyber heist, the newspaper exclusive
said of a hotel hack. An Indian hacker had managed to successfully
breach the Best Western Hotel Group online booking system and helped
himself to a database containing details of 8 million customers.
A Best Western spokesperson did the decent thing
and thanked the reporter for discovering the breach and disclosing it
to them so they could close the hole before publication.
Indeed, that spokesperson said that "Best Western took immediate action
to disable the compromised login account in question. We continue to
investigate the root cause of the issue, including, but not limited to,
the third-party Website that has allegedly facilitated this illegal
exchange of information."
It was never going to end there, not with that headline and those
numbers allegedly involved. And, of course, it did not. Best Western
had
a change of
heart.
Now the story that is flying around the blogosphere and finding its way
into print is one that claims far from 8 million customers having their
personal information misappropriated, the actual number was 13 at the
most.
So who do you believe? The Best Western Hotel Group or a tabloid hack
and his unnamed hacker source? At first glance the temptation is to
dismiss the 8 million figure as being just a headline grabber and go
with Best Western on this one.
However, I have known the reporter in question for many years and can
reveal that far from being a 'hack' he is, in actual fact, a highly
respected investigative journalist with a couple of decades of
experience in digging out stories such as this.
I spoke to Iain S Bruce about his investigation into the Best Western
breach, and iTWire are the first media outlet to see screenshots of the
compromised database. Find out what else we learned on page 2...
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