{"id":11911,"date":"2012-06-28T16:00:35","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T21:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcitement.com\/?p=11911"},"modified":"2012-06-28T14:29:49","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T19:29:49","slug":"wyndham-resorts-draw-ftc-ire-when-too-much-data-checks-out-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/culture\/wyndham-resorts-draw-ftc-ire-when-too-much-data-checks-out-early\/","title":{"rendered":"Wyndham Resorts Draw FTC Ire When Too Much Data Checks Out Early"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/techcitement.com?attachment_id=11916\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11916\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11916 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/techcitement.comadmin\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/wyndham_logo.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a>Only weeks after the FBI warned travelers of an increasing risk of data theft while using hotel internet connection, the FTC files a <a title=\"FTC Annual Report\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/sentinel\/reports\/sentinel-annual-reports\/sentinel-cy2011.pdf\">complaint<\/a> against the Wyndham hotel chain for alleged failures in data security. Wyndham hotels had three security breaches within less than two years&#8217; time, ultimately leading to hundreds of thousands of customer&#8217;s credit cards leaking out to a Russian website, and consumers incurring millions of dollars of fraud losses.<\/p>\n<p>Among Wyndham&#8217;s failings were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Failure to use firewalls.<\/li>\n<li>Storage of customer credit card information in plain text.<\/li>\n<li>Allowed use of default user IDs and passwords, allowing easy access by hackers doing internet searches.<\/li>\n<li>Failure to adequately inventory computer system attached to the network.<\/li>\n<li>Failure to conduct security investigations.<\/li>\n<li>Permitted Wyndham-branded hotels to connect insecure computers to the network, including systems running outdated operating systems, unable to receive security updates.<\/li>\n<li>Failure to restrict access to property management systems by third party vendors.<\/li>\n<li>Didn&#8217;t require the use of complex passwords for property management systems (defendants used the phrase \u201cmicros\u201d as both the user ID and the password).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All of this doesn&#8217;t even address known attacks involving the free wireless access commonly offered at such hotels. The FBI&#8217;s warning in May didn&#8217;t target any specific hotel chain, but cautioned of a growing problem where travelers establishing WiFi connections are presented with a pop-up window prompting them to\u00a0 update a widely used software product. If they click to accept the update, malware is installed on their system.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s wise to assume your hotel&#8217;s internet connection is not secure and to do all of your computer&#8217;s software updates before you travel.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/techcitement.comsoftware\/sweet-giveaway-for-sugarsync-10-gb-accounts\/\">[Win 10 GB of cloud storage from SugarSync just by liking Techcitement on Facebook and commenting on articles there!<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Only weeks after the FBI warned travelers of an increasing risk of data theft while using hotel internet connection, the FTC files a complaint against the Wyndham hotel chain for alleged failures in data security. Wyndham hotels had three security breaches within less than two years&#8217; time, ultimately leading to hundreds of thousands of customer&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[905,1920],"tags":[2133,2939,1050,2937,830,2938,19,2936],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11911"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11921,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11911\/revisions\/11921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}