As I've said many times, we are moving towards my prediction that every single account of any kind that's available electronically will eventually be compromised. Have you ever paid for a room at a Marriott hotel? Well, you're account information has been hacked.

Just a piddly half a billion? Child's play.

Marriott says its database of 500 million hotel guests was compromised

Probably put a bit of a dent in their profits if all 500M insist they supply identity theft protection.

Jeez, I am currently spending time making sure all my varied crap is locked down due to another hack. I am reasonably certain that I have everything on Two Step Verification and secure but there's always the next hack coming.

It doesn’t matter how secure a system is; if it is electronic, and can be accessed, it can be compromised. Only a truly closed system like nuke plants or missile silos are hack proof, and that precludes every single employee can be trusted 100%

This is why one should stay at Motel 6.

0.5B accounts hacked?!?!?!

Bit the bullet after the United Airlines hack a few years ago and decided to have unique, and difficult passwords for every account.

That's well past what can be done just keeping mental track (well, at least it's past what I can do) so sprung for Dashlane to keep track of them all.

Meanwhile, I'd like to see some jurisdiction get hold of one or two of these account-breakers and, channeling Marsellus Wallace, have someone go medieval on their ass as a deterrent. Clearly existing law enforcement procedures and punishments are not working.

I blame those who stayed at a Holiday Inn for the hack

quote:

Originally posted by roadkill:
I blame those who stayed at a Holiday Inn for the hack

I didn’t get hacked, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night...

I don't really care anymore. Name me one person whose identity data HASN'T been compromised. When my TS/SCI clearance data was hacked by the Chinese, I gave up trying to protect my identity other than the usual strong-passwords-change-em-frequently means.

quote:

Originally posted by fpuhan:
I don't really care anymore.

Yeah? Well, you may have the opportunity to care a whole lot at some point.

My cards have been compromised so many times that I started paying for the TransUnion credit watch. $20 a month because of ASSHOLES.

Most of the CC issues have been inconsequential, but I was lucky enough to be in on the one where the IRS mailroom employee stole identities a few years back. That one was significantly more serious. Didn't cost me any money, but a bunch of stupid fraudulent loan apps, etc.

500MM!

That's gonna leave a mark. Surely somebody here is in the remediation business but as I recall when we had a laptop with HIPAA info on it stolen the costs were around $12/person affected.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
.....Have you ever paid for a room at a Marriott hotel? Well, you're account information has been hacked.....

Marriotts are out of my budget so thankfully no. I'll be in trouble when the Patels get hacked though.

I've been part of so many of these, that I've got identity protection until the end of time.

Ten years ago, my wife and I stayed at a Marriott for several days and ran up a bill of about 1200 dollars. I had a question about a minor item on my bill. I called billing and had to leave a voicemail. All I sid was "I have a question about an item on my bill". I wasn't angry during leaving the voicemail, didn't demand a call back or anything like that. It was some tiny charge I didn't think should be on my bill, something like 15 bucks. Not a big deal at all.

Next thing I know, Marriott- without contacting me- refunded my entire bill to my CC.

Go figure

Naïve question: Why would a retailer or service provider need to keep payment info like card numbers and exp. dates?

Damn! I’m platinum with Marriott. I don’t store my personal or business credit card in my profile, but it’s in future reservations and past stays. It really depends on what they hacked.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
Damn! I’m platinum with Marriott. I don’t store my personal or business credit card in my profile, but it’s in future reservations and past stays. It really depends on what they hacked.

Same with me. Starwood and Marriott merged their rewards programs last year, I had zero activity with my old Starwood account so I don't think I combined them.

I think Para is spot on. Your personal information is spread everywhere and, sooner or later, someone else is going to get their hands on it.

I've preemptively put a freeze on all my accounts with the credit bureaus largely because of this inevitability. I'm sure that's not a silver bullet fix, nor am I recommending it as such, but it's a step that we probably all should take to make any identity theft that much more difficult.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
Damn! I’m platinum with Marriott.

Larry Miller from Mumbai err Microsoft Technical Support on line 1 for you.